Europe’s Journal of Psychology (PsychOpen)
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Meaning and Wellness: A Comparative Psychobiography on Helen Suzman and Beyers Naudé
No full textThis comparative psychobiographical study provides an in-depth exploration of meaning in the lives of two extraordinary individuals, Helen Suzman and Beyers Naudé. A comparison of the construction of meaning, as an important aspect of wellness within the holistic wellness model, is given for these South African anti-apartheid activists. Suzman (1917–2009) dedicated her career to opposing apartheid policy as a parliamentary politician. Naudé (1915–2004) was a renowned public figure dedicated to social justice in his role as a theologian. The holistic wellness model views the Neo-Adlerian life task of spirituality as crucial to ascribing meaning to life events, acknowledging multiple potential sources of meaning. The differences and similarities pertaining to the domains of meaning-making of these two subjects are explored. The subjects, who differed regarding biographical variables, were found to share a common sense of purpose within the same socio-political milieu. The study findings confirm that commitment to diverse sources of meaning and generativity are central to meaningfulness. This comparative psychobiographical study contributes to the eugraphic exploration of the meaning-making processes of these exemplary individuals
Bystander Reactions to Workplace Incivility: The Role of Gender and Discrimination Claims
No full textWill men and women receive the same support at work when they claim to have been discriminated against? This paper reports a scenario-based experimental study (N = 240, 50.4% women, M age = 25.65) that investigated bystanders’ reactions to an incident where a co-worker is treated in a condescending manner by another co-worker. The results showed that women reacted more strongly to the incivility incident and were more willing to support and defend the co-worker. As expected, the gender difference in helping intentions was especially prominent when the co-worker attributed the incident to gender discrimination, compared to a control condition with an attribution unrelated to gender. Further, when the incident was attributed to discrimination, the female co-worker evoked somewhat stronger helping intentions than the male co-worker, suggesting the presence of gender bias. The results are discussed in relation to the prototype perspective of perceived discrimination
Anchoring Effect of Performance Feedback on Accuracy of Metacognitive Monitoring in Preschool Children
No full textPreschool children are generally inaccurate at evaluating past and predicting future performance. The present study examines the effect of performance feedback on the accuracy of preschoolers’ predictive judgments and tests whether performance feedback acts as an anchor for postdictive judgments. In Experiment 1, preschool children (n = 40) solved number patterns, and in Experiment 2 they solved object patterns (n = 59). The results in both experiments revealed, firstly, that children receiving performance feedback made more accurate predictive judgments and lowered their certainty after their incorrect answer. Secondly, the children relied on performance feedback more than on actual task experience when making postdictive judgments, indicating that performance feedback was used as an anchor for subsequent postdictive judgments
Metamemory and Memory Discrepancies in Directed Forgetting of Emotional Information
No full textDirected Forgetting (DF) studies show that it is possible to exert cognitive control to intentionally forget information. The aim of the present study was to investigate how aware individuals are of the control they have over what they remember and forget when the information is emotional. Participants were presented with positive, negative and neutral photographs, and each photograph was followed by either a Remember or a Forget instruction. Then, for each photograph, participants provided Judgments of Learning (JOLs) by indicating their likelihood of recognizing that item on a subsequent test. In the recognition phase, participants were asked to indicate all old items, irrespective of instruction. Remember items had higher JOLs than Forget items for all item types, indicating that participants believe they can intentionally forget even emotional information—which is not the case based on the actual recognition results. DF effect, which was calculated by subtracting recognition for Forget items from Remember ones was only significant for neutral items. Emotional information disrupted cognitive control, eliminating the DF effect. Response times for JOLs showed that evaluation of emotional information, especially negatively emotional information takes longer, and thus is more difficult. For both Remember and Forget items, JOLs reflected sensitivity to emotionality of the items, with emotional items receiving higher JOLs than the neutral ones. Actual recognition confirmed better recognition for only negative items but not for positive ones. JOLs also reflected underestimation of actual recognition performance. Discrepancies in metacognitive judgments due to emotional valence as well as the reasons for underestimation are discussed
The Emperor of Fashion’s New Starts: Creativity and Meaning in Life in Karl Lagerfeld
No full textDuring his lifetime, Karl Otto Lagerfeld (1933–2018) attained such industry renown that he became widely known as the Emperor of Fashion. Lagerfeld ran several fashion houses, such as Chanel and Fendi, leading them to unprecedented profits. He also created his own fashion label. Owing to his unremitting pursuit of excellence through creative expression, Lagerfeld’s creativity, energy and intuition for fashion trends seemed only to expand throughout his long career. The authors suggest that, through his creative approach to fashion, architecture, and publishing, Lagerfeld articulated and refined a core set of values-such as “Bildung,” “lightness” and “the unexpected”—that served as a Diltheyan “nexus” linking the Prussian-born designer with the global consumer. The authors apply two specific creativity theories to Lagerfeld’s life and work, namely the mini-c, little-c, Pro-c and Big-C creativity theory and Sternberg’s WICS-model (wisdom, intelligence and creativity). The article uses a psychobiographical case study design formulated according to a research paradigm of modern hermeneutics. First- and third-person data on Lagerfeld were collected and evaluated through a hermeneutically-informed syntho-analysis. Research ethics were followed. The findings demonstrate the interplay of mini-c, little-c, Pro-c and Big-C creativity throughout the subject’s lifetime, as well as the subject’s application of WICS, both of which led to the subject’s worldwide success. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations for future research and practice are provided
Creating a Meaningful Life: Psychobiographical Investigations
No full textThis article serves as the editorial to the Special Issue of Europe’s Journal of Psychology that focusses on “Creating a meaningful life: Psychobiographical investigations.” The introduction provides a brief overview of the articles that offer original and innovative approaches to the growing research area of psychobiography, meaning and identity from different theoretical, methodological, disciplinary and socio-cultural background
The CO-MAsk Approach: Tips for Fostering Mask Use Among Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic
No full textFace masks are effective at limiting contagion of the coronavirus. However, adherence to face mask use among the older adult population is often unsatisfactory due to cognitive impairment, misconceptions, and difficulty in retrieving face masks. This brief note provides healthcare professionals with simple suggestions about how to improve face mask adoption in the older adults, in particular if they suffer from mild cognitive impairment. Thus, clinical reflections and psychoeducational suggestions are summarized into a simple mental roadmap. Specifically, the CO-MAsk approach underlines the necessity to consider the following factors: Cognition (possible cognitive impairment), Occasions (real chances to access correct information and proper protection equipment), Motivation (individual motivation towards sanitary prescriptions) and Assumptions (personal beliefs and understandings). Possible obstacles and practical suggestions for are also discussed. It is of paramount importance that healthcare professionals pay attention to emotional, cognitive and psychological aspects to effectively improve the face masks adherence among older adults, specifically when cognitive decline is present
Gender Differences in Mother-Child Conversations About Shame and Pride in a Hungarian Sample
No full textAlthough meta-analytic reviews repeatedly found significant gender differences in the experiences of shame and pride throughout the life span, to date, gender differences in conversations about these emotions have not been studied. Our research was aimed at investigating the effect of child gender on maternal conversational style in and emotional content of mother-child conversations about shame- and pride-related past events in preschool years. Fifty four mother—preschool child dyads (52% girls, children’s age M = 70.36 months [SD = 8.13], mothers’ age M = 37.51 years [SD = 3.70]) from middle class Hungarian families were asked to talk about two past events, one in which children felt ashamed, and one in which they felt proud. The conversations were transcribed and coded for maternal conversational style and for emotional content. Maternal conversational style was indicated by maternal elaboration and evaluation of the child’s contributions. Emotional content was indicated by specific emotion terms, emotional behavior and emotional evaluations. In mother-son shame conversations, we found higher amount of negative emotional behavior. Boys also had longer conversations with their mothers, and mothers used more open-ended memory questions and more repetitions with boys in both shame and pride conversations. Girls had shorter contributions to pride stories than to shame stories, which was not the case for boys. Exploration of verbal socialization of shame and pride helps us to understand the development of individual differences in proneness to self-conscious emotions, and their implications for mental health
Job Characteristics, Well-Being and Physical Activity: A Field Study Using a Consumer Fitness Tracker
No full textThe relation between job characteristics and health is one of the most important fields of research within work and organizational psychology. Another prominent variable influencing health is physical activity. The physical activity mediated Demand-Control (pamDC) model (Häusser & Mojzisch, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2017.1303759) combines these health indicators in a new theoretical framework. Based on the pamDC model the current study aims to clarify the role of leisure time physical activity (LTPA) in the interplay of job demands, job control and well-being. We expect physical activity to partially mediate the impact of job characteristics on health. To avoid self-report bias considering physical activity we used a consumer fitness tracker to collect additional data. In total, 104 white-collar workers participated in the study. The results show that job control and job demands could predict well-being in cross-sectional analyses. In longitudinal analyses, this was only the case for job demands. Regarding the proposed mediating effect of LTPA between job characteristics and health, we could not detect a significant mediation in our sample. This was true for both self-reported and objective data on physical activity. This study provides a first step in validating the pamDC model and has implications for future research
CBM-I Training and Its Effect on Interpretations of Intent, Facial Expressions, Attention and Aggressive Behavior
No full textThere is abundant evidence suggesting that attention and interpretation biases are powerful precursors of aggression. However, little is known how these biases may interact with one another in the development and maintenance of aggression. Using cognitive bias modification of interpretation (CBM-I), the present study examined whether training more pro-social or hostile intent attributions would affect attention bias, interpretation bias of facial expressions, aggression and mood. University students (17–48 years) were assigned to either a positive training (n = 40), negative training (n = 40), or control training (n = 40). Results showed that the positive training successfully changed measures of intent attributions in a pro-social direction compared to the control training. The negative training changed measures of intent attributions in a hostile direction but not more so than the control training. We found no generalization of the training effects to relevant other outcomes. Possible explanations underlying these findings are discussed