Europe’s Journal of Psychology (PsychOpen)
Not a member yet
930 research outputs found
Sort by
Training of Attention in Children With Low Arithmetical Achievement
No full textThis study focuses on the role of attentional processes in arithmetical skills and examines if training of basic attentive skills may improve also working memory abilities reducing arithmetic difficulties. In order to study the efficacy of attentional treatment in arithmetic achievement and in enhancing working memory abilities a test-treatment-retest quasi experimental design was adopted. The research involved 14 children, attending fourth and fifth grades, with Arithmetical Learning Disabilities (ALD) assigned to experimental and control conditions. The numerical comprehension and calculation processes were assessed using the ABCA battery (Lucangeli, Tressoldi, & Fiore, 1998). Attentional abilities were evaluated using a multitask computerized assessment battery Attenzione e Concentrazione (Di Nuovo, 2000). WM abilities were evaluated by Listening span task, Digit span backward, Making verbal trails and Making colour trails. The results showed that intensive computerized attention training increased basic attentive skills and arithmetical performances with respect to numeric system in children with ALD. No effect on working memory abilities was found. Results are also important from a clinical perspective, since they may suggest strategies for planning individualized training programs
Trait Emotional Intelligence, Anxiety Sensitivity, and Experiential Avoidance in Stress Reactivity and Their Improvement Through Psychological Methods
No full textStress pervades daily society, often with deleterious consequences for those prone to react intensely to it. Intervention techniques to attenuate stress reactivity are thus paramount. With that goal in mind, researchers have sought to identify and alter malleable psychological dispositional variables that influence stress reactivity. Trait emotional intelligence (TEI), anxiety sensitivity (AS), and experiential avoidance (EA) are increasingly receiving attention in these research efforts. The self-reported emotional component of stress reactivity has been emphasized in investigations and is our focus. Specifically, this paper overviews the role of TEI, AS, and EA in self-reported stress responses. We also discuss empirically supported psychological methods to adjust suboptimal levels of these variables in normal populations. Both psycho-educational (information, skills) and mindfulness-based interventions (specific mindfulness therapies or components) are covered. Findings include that (1) TEI, AS, and EA are each correlated with the emotional component of stress reactivity to both naturalistic and lab-based stressors; (2) preliminary support currently exists for psycho-educational intervention of TEI and AS but is lacking for EA; (3) adequate evidence supports mindfulness-based interventions to target EA, with very limited but encouraging findings suggesting mindfulness methods improve TEI and AS; and (4) although more research is needed, stress management approaches based on mindfulness may well target all three of these psychological variables and thus appear particularly promising. Encouragingly, some methods to modify dispositional variables (e.g., a mindfulness-based format of guided self-help) are easily disseminated and potentially applicable to the general public
The Effect of the Psychological Sense of Community on the Psychological Well-Being in Older Volunteers
No full textAgeing populations across Europe are increasing. Communities have an important role in not only engaging this segment of the population but also in helping them to make them feel “part of something” (local or global) in order to favour their psychological well-being. The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of volunteering and being connected in one’s community on well-being. The present paper will test an older volunteers’ psychological well-being model. 143 older volunteers completed measures of religiousness, sense of global responsibility, psychological sense of community, generativity, motivation to volunteer and a profile of mood states. Data show that a psychological sense of community has a key role in the study of older volunteerism due to its impact on well-being. Service agencies and administrations can develop campaigns to sustain older volunteerism in order to increase well-being and reduce social costs
Gender Differences in the Effects of Perception of Organizational Injustice on Workplace Reactivity
No full textPrevious studies have not adequately examined, in a single model, how gender and perception of organizational injustice are related with revenge-motivated behaviors, especially in male-dominated societies. This study investigated the extent to which gender and perception of organizational injustice predicted employees’ tendencies to engage in workplace reactivity, which comprises organizational revenge, interpersonal revenge, interpersonal violence, and corruption in a sample of 703 (460 females; 243 males) employees. Results of the hierarchical multiple regression indicated that gender predicted employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge and interpersonal violence; with males showing higher tendencies than females. There were no gender differences in employees’ tendencies to engage in corruption and interpersonal revenge. Employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge, interpersonal revenge, interpersonal violence, and corruption significantly increased with perception of organizational injustice. Females who felt unjustly treated exhibited as much organizational revenge, interpersonal revenge, interpersonal violence, and corrupt tendencies as males who felt unjustly treated. Implications for theory and research are discussed
Perceived Social Support and Academic Achievement in Argentinean College Students
No full textThis research aimed at describing perceived social support and its relation to academic achievement in a sample of 760 Argentinean college students. Perception of social support was assessed in terms of four possible sources: parents, teachers, classmates, and boyfriend/girlfriend or best friend. Academic achievement was measured using three different indicators: the rate of passed, failed and dropped classes in the time since the academic career was initiated. The main hypothesis posed was that a higher perception of social support would be related to a better academic achievement (a bigger rate of passed classes, and a smaller rate of failed and dropped classes). Findings showed that women perceived significantly more support than men from all sources, except from teachers. Both males and females perceived more support from best friends or boyfriends/girlfriends, and identified teachers as the less supportive source. A higher perception of social support was associated with better academic achievement but only for females. Limitations of the study and implications for the set in motion of different interventions in the academic field, which could be specific to certain type of students, are discussed
What Are You Laughing at? A Comprehensive Guide to the Comedic Event
No full textNo abstract available
Humor Styles and the Intolerance of Uncertainty Model of Generalized Anxiety
No full textPast research suggests that sense of humor may play a role in anxiety. The present study builds upon this work by exploring how individual differences in various humor styles, such as affiliative, self-enhancing, and self-defeating humor, may fit within a contemporary research model of anxiety. In this model, intolerance of uncertainty is a fundamental personality characteristic that heightens excessive worry, thus increasing anxiety. We further propose that greater intolerance of uncertainty may also suppress the use of adaptive humor (affiliate and self-enhancing), and foster the increased use of maladaptive self-defeating humor. Initial correlational analyses provide empirical support for these proposals. In addition, we found that excessive worry and affiliative humor both served as significant mediators. In particular, heightened intolerance of uncertainty lead to both excessive worry and a reduction in affiliative humor use, which, in turn, increased anxiety. We also explored potential humor mediating effects for each of the individual worry content domains in this model. These analyses confirmed the importance of affiliative humor as a mediator for worry pertaining to a wide range of content domains (e.g., relationships, lack of confidence, the future and work). These findings were then discussed in terms of a combined model that considers how humor styles may impact the social sharing of positive and negative emotions
Affective Style, Humor Styles and Happiness
No full textThe present study examined the relationships between dispositional approach and avoidance motives, humor styles, and happiness. In keeping with previous research, approach motives and the two positive humor styles (self-enhancing and affiliative) positively correlated with happiness, whereas avoidance motives and the two negative humor styles (self-defeating and aggressive) negatively correlated with happiness. Also, we found support for three new hypotheses. First, approach motives correlated positively with self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles. Second, avoidance motives correlated positively with self-defeating humor style, and third, the positive relationship between approach motives and happiness was mediated by self-enhancing humor style
Anti-Individualism and Perceptual Representation
No full textTyler Burge's anti-individualism – the view that individuating many of a creature's mental kinds is necessarily dependent on relations that the creature bears to the physical, or in some cases social, environment – backs his theory of perceptual representation, i.e. perceptual anti-individualism. Perceptual anti-individualism articulates a framework that, according to Burge, perceptual psychology assumed without articulation. In this interview, Burge talks about the main tenets and underpinnings of perceptual anti-individualism in relation to classic representational theories of perceptual experience, reductive theories of mental content, theories of phenomenal consciousness, and other associated topics
