Research Reports - February 2008

Imagery and Emotion Components of Event Descriptions about Self and Various Others

Imagery and emotion have been identified as two of the main component systems of autobiographical events. It is not yet known, however, whether a primary focus on either the self or others may have an impact on these components. To investigate this issue, half of the participants in this study provide a real and made-up event description about themselves, and half provide descriptions about a well-known other. (more...)

 

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, RELIGIOSITY AND SELF-EFFICACY AS PREDICTORS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL ADOLESCENTS IN OGBOMOSO, NIGERIA

Adolescence as a developmental period is filled with many challenges. Early developmental theorists, particularly Erickson (Erickson, 1959) have defined the period of adolescence as one of identity versus role confusion, in which adolescents must determine who they are, combining their self-understanding and social roles into a coherent identity. Today, Adolescents live in a society which has become multi-complex, thus making the roles of adolescents very diffuse and confusing. (more...)

 

Workaholism components and perceptions of negative organizational acts(1)

Accumulating research findings on work addiction and work addicts has shown that individuals scoring higher on work addiction also report more negative affects and poorer psychological health. This study extends this research by examining the relationship of work addiction to perceptions of negative acts or bullying in a large sample of Norwegian oil rig workers. (more...)

 

Research Reports - November 2007

Biased Judgements of Euro Coins’ sizes: Stimuli-specific and Interindividual Suggestive Effects

The introduction of the Euro released both hope and fear. On January 1st, 1999, the Euro became the official currency in most states of the European Community (EC). For the majority of the population however, this expressed itself only in fixed exchange rates between the participating currencies, since cash money was not changed immediately. Suggestibility regarding the biased estimations of Euro coins from alleged different countries was examined. It was predicted that images regarding different nations would affect these estimations. (more...)

 

Research Reports - November 2007

Emotional and instrumental aggressiveness and body weight loss

Violence and aggressiveness are social concerns. Also, at a time of rising prevalence of obesity, many people tend to control their body weight through dieting. The impact of several specific diets on mood and cognitive performances are currently giving rise to an increasing number of studies. Aggression is a heterogeneous phenomenon that can take place in several situations and covers a wide spectrum of different behaviors and meanings. (more...)

 

Research Reports - November 2007

Migrant men: managing gay and European identities in London

This study explores the nature of multiple identities in migrant gay men living in London. By using a phenomenological perspective, the stories of eleven gay men have been analyzed to develop a better understanding of the meanings attached to migrant, European, national and gay identities. The study begins with a review of the main social psychological and social constructionist research around identities and highlights the role of social categories (structure) and multiple identities in creative actors (agency) that emerge as dominant discourses around the nature of the self. (more...)

 

Research Reports - November 2007

The Development of the Brief Social Desirability Scale (BSDS)

The objective of this work is to devise a brief, practical, reliable and valid social desirability instrument for use in contexts where a short scale is useful for example in the assessment of social desirability factor in psychiatric patients. The Brief Social Desirability Scale (BSDS) has the advantages of brevity and practicality. It can be used before administering attitudinal surveys in order to factor in the effect of the social desirability on attitudinal questionnaires. BSDS is preferred in many test situations where the administration time is limited or subjects are unable to bear lengthy questionnaires and the related drop in reliability due to brevity of the scale remains tolerable. (more...)

 

Research Reports - November 2007

Over Age in Marital Status and Submissiveness as Determinant of Suicide Ideation in adults

Assertiveness trait of an individual is straight forwardness in all dealings of life. The person has independence in nature, non convincing with other’s ideas, and dominance in behavior in general, whereas submissiveness keeps his ideas to himself only, not dare to open her mouth, fearful to meet and exchange views with others, accept subordination and act as others say, hesitant to oppose other’s views. It appears that young adults today are more likely prone to emotional-disorders that develop suicidal thoughts correspond closely to marital-status, in that it tends to occur more frequently among single persons and those who are divorced and separated than among married living together. (more...)

 

Research Reports - August 2007

ANALYSIS OF IDENTIFICATION ACCURACY Determining the Accuracy of Eyewitness Identifications Using Statement Analysis

Statement analysis has been used for years to determine the accuracy of statements. The Judgement of Memory Characteristics Questionnaire was revised in the current study to assess the accuracy of eyewitness identifications. Participants watched a video of a theft then identified the perpetrator from a line-up. Two statements were obtained: descriptions of the perpetrator and post-identification statements. The characteristics present in descriptions did not predict identification accuracy. However, analysis of the characteristics present in post-identification statements resulted in two predictive factors: Quality of Description and Amount of Detail. (more...)

 

POOR PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT & ADJUSTMENT OF ADOLESCENTS

Present investigation is to compare the adjustment pattern of adolescents living in physically deprived environment. Children who have insufficient fresh air to breath, open ground to play and healthy environmental surrounding are quite unable to promote social and psychological interaction and develop ultimately inferiority complex and a feeling of inadequacy in them. (more...)

 

Work Motivation Patterns Underlying Workaholism Components

This study examined motivation patterns associated with workaholism components (work involvement, feeling driven to work, joy in work) identified by Spence and Robbins (1992). Data were collected from 211 Norwegian journalists using anonymous self-report questionnaires. Two motivation patterns were considered: intrinsic and extrinsic. Journalists scoring higher on intrinsic motivations reported greater work involvement and greater work enjoyment; journalists scoring higher on extrinsic motivations reported lower work enjoyment. The motivation patterns were independent of levels of feeling driven to work because of internal needs. (more...)

 

Research Reports - May 2007

RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT AS PERIPHERAL: CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF RELIGIOUS ORIENTATION BY MULTIDIMENSIONAL SCALING

The relation between intrinsic and extrinsic orientations was studied in four samples of believing affiliates (Bosnian Muslims, Serbian Orthodox, Slovenian Catholics and US Protestants). By exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and by multidimensional scaling (MDS), differences in patterns of religious orientations were discerned in the various cultures. By EFA, in the two European settings a closeness between intrinsic (I) and extrinsic personal (EP) orientation was noted. Beside that extrinsic other (EO) items, indicating peripheral nature of the religious sentiment, appeared as a separate dimension. The CFA produced slight differences in this direction, still allowing for a four component finding. The two dimensional presentation in MDS also indicated a similarity in pattern of the dimensions of religious orientation. In all four cases a pattern in the distribution of items appears allowing for naming the vertical axis as indicating the variation between centrality and periphery, and the horizontal one as indicating the variation between social and personal dimensions in religious sentiment. (more...)

 

Clinical inclusion of dissociative episodes-a case study

We described a clinical case presenting with dissociative and PTSD-like symptoms and we attempted a diagnosis and some symptom explanations in the light of existing theories about trauma and dissociation. KEYWORDS: dissociation, posttraumatic stress syndrome, trauma theory (more...)

 

Research Reports - February 2007

Social Representations between Greeks and Jordanians: A comparative study

The present paper refers to a comparative study of Social Representations (SRs) for a sample of 1207 Greek and Jordanians primary school pupils (653 from Rethymnon city of Greece and 554 from Zarka city of Jordan). The data were collected through an open-ended questionnaire. Conceptually, three directions of images or social representations were formulated; positive, neutral and negative. The results clearly show that the direction of images for both samples was moved towards neutral SRs, as depicted by the quantity of statements. The study also revealed that the main source of information about their social representations to each other was the school for the Jordanian pupils and television for the Greek pupils. (more...)

 

Research Reports - November 2006

Personality Traits And Feeling Of Loneliness In Unemployed Youths

nemployment has been a recurring social problem throughout the century and bringing a mental health problem. In addition to feelings of excitement and anticipation, there may also be the feelings of loneliness. Loneliness is an important personality variable. Aim of the present investigation is to know the effect of personality traits on the perception of perceived loneliness in unemployed youths. The sample consists of 200 subjects within the age group of 26-32 yrs of age drawn from district Haridwar, clear demarcations were observed in the groups of different levels of personality traits on perceived loneliness (more...)

 

Research Reports - November 2006

S QUESTIONNAIRE

The word sincerity has profound connections with both religion and philosophy, in which we can find the very essence of its meaning. The need for sincerity is the need to find the truth in people, facts and the world in general. It is the desire for illumination, which motivates human existence on an intellectual and spiritual level; even though sometime such a need is revealed unconsciously or, perhaps, in a peculiar manner. (more...)

 

Research Reports - August 2006

Effects of Task Demands in the Auditory Attentional Blink

ABSTRACT Auditory perception may be modified by attentional mechanisms. Forward informational masking, an attentional phenomenon, was studied as a function of time and task demands. A rapid auditory presentation (RAP) task involving timbre-based streaming of to-be-attended sound signals from distractors was used to assess the report of a to-be-attended signal (Probe; “P”). The experiment consisted of a sequence of distractors alone, or following another to-be-attended signal (Target; “T”), in various conditions. Participants (29 undergraduate psychology students) were asked either to simply detect or to identify P at various Stimulus Onset Asynchronies (SOAs) after T. Learning effects were also examined. Response task was found to be irrelevant to decrements, while decrements were generally ameliorated as SOA increased, and as experience with the tasks increased. These performance decrements represent an auditory attentional blink. (more...)

 

Research Reports - August 2006

Suicide Ideation and Psychopathology Among Adolescents

Suicides are linked to feelings of depression and hopelessness. Other factors in suicide include anxiety, drug abuse, problems in school or at work, and social problems. Aim of the present investigation is to know the differences between male and female adolescents. The sample consists of 50 (25 male and 25 female) subjects drawn from district Hardwar. The age of all subjects ranged from 15 to 18 years (mean 16.5 years) and majority of the subjects belonged to middle socio-economic status. All the tests were administered on the sample in-group setting in classrooms. Over the centuries, suicide had different meanings. Males of all the ages commit suicide at a higher rate than females although females attempt suicide more often than males. Suicide rates in India have shown a gradually increasing trend. Study reveals that male adolescents have scored significantly higher on the measures of suicidal ideation, whereas male adolescents have more psychological impairment on psychopathic deviation (Pp). There is significance gender difference on the measure of suicide ideation (more...)

 

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCHOLASTIC ACTIVITIES AND CREATIVITY AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN THE STATE OF KWUAIT

This study was conducted based on the desire of the Administration of Scholastic Activities in The State of Kuwait to evaluate the reality of the various fields of creative scholastic activities in the secondary school . The rationale underlying this study is that students’ mental maturity entails teachers with the same level of creativity and inclination to innovation in order to cope with the ever-occurring educational changes. This is important since some school administrations are still unconvinced with the educational and psychological significance of scholastic activities, and consequently they hinder the implementation of activity programs. Besides, some teachers and school activity supervisors are not specialists and funds for scholastic activities are sufficient. (more...)

 

Prevalence, symptomatology, and risk factors for depression among high school students in Saudi Arabia

Depression has been considered to be the major psychiatric disease of the 20th century. The World Health Organization identified major depression as the fourth leading cause of worldwide disease in 1990. Recent studies have shown that greater than 20% of adolescents in the general population have emotional problems and one-third of adolescents attending psychiatric clinics suffer from depression. Numerous outcome studies have documented several negative effects of depression. (more...)

 

Research Reports - May 2006

Is there a decline in verbal working memory over age?

In this study, the new standard computerized version of the reading span test was used to investigate the development of verbal working memory over age. A significant higher reading span and faster reaction times were expected for the young adults compared to the old adults, based on the processing resource theory (Just & Carpenter, 1992) and the theory of cognitive aging (Salthouse, 1994, 1996), and this hypothesis was confirmed. The new methodology made it possible to test whether there was an age-related increase in intrusion errors, which could be expected based on the inhibition theory of cognitive aging (Hasher & Zacks, 1988). The results showed that older adults made more intrusion errors than young adults thereby confirming the inhibition theory. Finally, the analysis of the memory-pattern showed a clear recency-effect for the young-, but not for the old adults. Interestingly, this has never been reported in literature before. Although more research is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn, this decline in recency-effect shows that there are larger age-related effects in short term memory span than was expected on the basis of aging theories so far. (more...)

 

Research Reports - May 2006

Formation Conditions of Corporate Social Responsibility in Organizational Culture

Māra Vidnere and Jānis Strautmanis Māra Vidnere Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy Imantas 7. līnija 1, Riga (Latvia) LV-1083 Tel.: + 371 7808010, Fax: +371 7 808 034 Email: mvidnere@navigator.lv Jānis Strautmanis Banking Institution of Higher Education K.... (more...)

 

Effect Of Chronic Disease On Romantic Partner Choice

Loredana Ruxandra Gherasim, Andreea Mihaela Mihalca Abstract Background: Interpersonal attraction is influenced by many factors like physical attraction, similarity or proximity. The impact of chronic illnesses on romantic relationships hasn’t been studied very deeply. Method. An experimental study was completed... (more...)

 

Research Reports - May 2006

Instructional Clarity: The Effect of Bilingualism and Instructor's Preparation

Abstract The study focused on bilingualism and preparation of teachers that affected the teacher’s clarity. Twenty monolingual and bilingual participants of various preparation, in the first phase of the study, were randomly assigned to two groups: high and low preparation. Participants read the same lecture and presented it a week later. Two independent coders analyzed the lectures against the Vagueness Terms Checklist. Eighty participants in the second phase were randomly assigned to four lecturing conditions. The tape-recorded lectures, chosen in the first phase, were presented to junior undergraduate students. Students rated the lecture on an 11-item response form. Results of this study were analyzed using a two-way analysis of variance and post-test design. Bilingualism showed significant statistical results. (more...)

 

Research Reports - February 2006

Emotional Competence and Leadership Excellence at Johnson & Johnson

A study was conducted on three hundred and fifty-eight Managers across the Johnson & Johnson Consumer & Personal Care Group (JJC&PC Group) globally to assess if there are specific leadership competencies that distinguish high performers from average performers. Participants were randomly selected, then coded for performance rating, potential code, gender, functional group and regional area. More than fourteen hundred employees took part in a one hundred and eighty three question multi-rater survey that measured a variety of competencies associated with leadership performance including those commonly referred to as Emotional Intelligence. Results showed that the highest performing managers have significantly more “emotional competence” than other managers. (more...)

 

Research Reports - February 2006

Police Officers Over Career Stages: Satisfaction and Well Being (1)

This study compared work experiences, work satisfactions and psychological well-being of police officers in constable jobs across five career stages using age cutoffs. These stages were: 32 years of age or younger, 33 to 37, 38-42, 43-47 and 48 years or older. Data were collected from 466 police officers in Norway using anonymously completed questionnaires. The five career stage groups differed on personal demographic and work situation characteristics (e.g., shift schedule, police tenure) related to age. Constables in early career stages reported more favourable work outcomes, greater social support, less exhaustion and cynicism, fewer subjective health complaints and better over-all health. There were also many areas where the career stage groups were similar (e.g., job demands, job satisfaction). The findings suggest the importance of particularly responding to the needs of constables in later career stages. (more...)

 

Effects Of Group Cultural Differences On Task Peformance And Socialization Behaviours

ABSTRACT Drawing on Hofstede’s theory and research, this study examined the hypothesis that differences in cultural dimensions of individualism/collectivism and homogeneity/heterogeneity will influence the level of task performance and socialization. Swedes (individualists) and Greeks (collectivists) were assigned to two separate groups. In the first phase of the experiment the two groups were homogenous - consisting of 3 participants from each of the cultures (3 Swedes, 3 Greeks). Their task was to put together a 54piece puzzle. Both homogenous groups were timed and observed separately. The next step was to bring in two heterogeneous (ethnically mixed) groups. For this purpose the size of each homogeneous group was increased to 6 participants by assigning one American, Canadian and German representative. Their task was to put together a larger, 300 piece puzzle within a certain time frame of 25minutes. Individual and group responses were measured using a fine-grained checklist. The hypotheses were: 1) Homogenous individualistic group would finish the task faster than the homogenous collectivistic group. 2) Heterogeneous individualistic group will finish the task faster than heterogeneous collectivistic group. 3) Collectivists will be more socially interactive than individualists. In this research hypotheses 1 and 3 were supported, whereas hypothesis 2 was not. The implications for future research are that individualism/collectivism and homogeneity/heterogeneity of a group may have an influence on group dynamics as it relates to task performance. (more...)

 

Research Reports - February 2006

Metaphorical Representations of the Consultancy and the Consultant in Romania (2)

The present study was conducted on constructivist analytical frame and it concentrated on the metaphorical representations of the HR specialists about the HR consultants and, generally, about the consultancy process. The study has been developed during January February 2005, by D&D Research, with the participation of HR-Romania. The methodology was mostly quantitative, based on the deployment of 188 questionnaires by face-to-face administration, but, also, by the respondent’s self-evaluation. (more...)

 

Research Reports - November 2005

Another Brick in the Wall? Putting Freedom and Democracy on the Curriculum in Hungarian Schools

Hungary is an East Central European country with a population of 10 million. Every day about 1,821,000 children (between the ages of six and eighteen) go to kindergarten, elementary and secondary schools. Approximately a further one million parents and teachers are affected by the public institutional system. How does this mass of many millions of people manage everyday conflicts? What conflict management and civic models does Hungarian public education use today, 15 years after transition to democracy? Relying on nation-wide studies carried out in recent years by the Kurt Lewin Foundation I will now attempt to reveal answers to questions like these. Our work presents the connection and correlation between school aggression, hazing, and the civic socialisation of the individual. The text is also inclusive of a number of interview extracts, too. (more...)

 

Investigating new Ways to Study Adolescent Moral Competence

To explore adolescent moral development and moral competence it is important to develop an instrument, which would make a moral dilemma content explicit for subjects and assist adolescents to make a proper decision. We suppose that a specially designed movie could be used as a tool for representing a moral dilemma core to develop essential motivation and inclusion of viewers in the presented task, to present a realistic content of the problem situation and to present the context of this situation as a whole, and finally to make explicit the emotional peculiarities of the situation. The new method to assess adolescent moral competence has been tested in few secondary schools of Moscow, Russia in 2002-2004 (participants’ age 13 – 16 y.o., N=250). It has been found that this new method allowed to objectify the content of a moral dilemma much more effectively than a traditional, written manner did and consequently revealed more adequately the level of adolescents’ moral competence. (more...)

 

Research Reports - November 2005

Metaphorical Representations of the Consultancy and the Consultant in Romania (1)

The present study was conducted on constructivist analytical frame and it concentrated on the metaphorical representations of the HR specialists about the HR consultants and, generally, about the consultancy process. The study has been developed during January February 2005, by D&D Research, with the participation of HR-Romania. The methodology was mostly quantitative, based on the deployment of 188 questionnaires by face-to-face administration, but, also, by the respondent’s self-evaluation. (more...)