Psychological Thought

132-141

Authors: Dilwar Hussain

Over the last few decades there has been a substantial increase in the research and applications of meta-cognition and mindfulness. The concept of meta-cognition and mindfulness seems different and their research literature evolved independent of each other. However, meta-cognition and mindfulness share many commonalities and are conceptually related in many ways. Evidently, there has been relatively little research addressing this relationship. The research tradition of meta-cognition and mindfulness may strengthen and benefit each other. Specific aspects, such as development of ‘meta-awareness’ can be integrated with each other in a complementary as well as supplementary manner in applied settings such as psychotherapy. This paper describes the nature of meta-cognition and mindfulness and reviews their conceptual relationships. Finally, theoretical and applied implications of this relationship are discussed.

148-172

Authors: Eva Papazova, Raymond Moody, John Bathurst

Emerging adulthood exists only in cultures that allow young people a prolonged period of independent social roles and exploration during the late teens and twenties. It is a period of the course of life that is culturally constructed, not universal or immutable (Arnett, 2000). This assumption led to the idea for comparison of this age in three cultures - Bulgarian, Hawaiian and New Zealand. The Myers-Briggs type indicator, Form G, was administered (Myers et al., 1998). The sample consisted of 289 respondents, aged 18-29, respectively the Bulgarians were 100, the Hawaiians were 89 and the New Zealanders were 100. Six SRTT comparisons were made. The results show that there were typological differences that distinguished the group of Bulgarians, aged 18-29, from their peers from Hawaii, USA and New Zealand. The specificity was expressed in preference to N, P, T, IN, NP, NT, IP, TP and INTP. This finding is largely consistent with the pursuit of new experience and opportunities, typical for the years of emerging adulthood. As well, there were some typological differences between the gender groups.

189-201

Authors: Thomas H. Dozier

Misophonia is a condition in which a person has an acute emotional response of anger or disgust to a commonly occurring innocuous auditory or visual stimulus referred to as a trigger. This case details the effective treatment of misophonia in a young woman that included a counterconditioning treatment called the Neural Repatterning Technique (NRT), which combines a continuous positive stimulus and a reduced intensity, intermittent trigger. The treatment was delivered via the Misophonia Trigger Tamer smartphone app and all treatments were conducted independently by the patient. In this patient, the trigger elicited a physical reflex of contraction of the flexor digitorum profundus, which caused her to clench her fist. To enhance the effect of the NRT treatment, Progressive Muscle Relaxation was incorporated to increase her ability to deliberately relax the affected muscle during treatment. During NRT treatment sessions, the patient experienced a weak physical reflex to the reduced trigger stimulus but no emotional response. Her emotional response of misophonia was not treated, but when the physical reflex extinguished, the emotional response also extinguished. This case indicates that the misophonic response includes a Pavlovian-conditioned physical reflex. It is proposed that the trigger elicited the physical reflex and the physical reflex then elicited the conditioned emotional response that is characteristic of misophonia. Because of the conditioned reflex nature of misophonia, it is proposed that a more appropriate name for this disorder would be Conditioned Aversive Reflex Disorder.

1-6

Authors: Marius Drugaş

This Editorial article discusses the publishing strategies of some journals, the authors' reactions to them and the quality of publishing.

17-34

Authors: Steven Charles Hertler

Freud noted that the obsessive traits of orderliness, parsimony, and obstinacy incontestably belonged together. This observation has been unfailingly justified, but unsatisfactorily explained. Being a highly heritable pattern essentially unaffected by parental influence, it is counterfactual to continue to explain the obsessive trait constellation as a pathological signature of harsh, authoritarian parenting. Alternatively, the present paper, building upon a previously promulgated evolutionary etiological model, describes how obsessive traits work in unison to enable survival within harsh northerly climates. What appears to be a loosely federated inventory of pathology, after the application of evolutionary reasoning, becomes a coherent behavioral package, adaptive suite, or behavioral syndrome. All three of these terms, taken from behavioral biology, suggest that traits strategically covary, such that the adaptive value of each trait is enhanced by the presence of the others. In this vein, the union of anxious tension and conscientiousness drives the obsessive personality to labor incessantly. The fruits of obsessive labor are then conserved through parsimoniousness, hoarding, vigilance, and niggardliness. And so, obsessive personality is a coherent behavioral package in that the drive to work towards the acquisition of necessities is paired with the drive to conserve and defend them.

47-67

Authors: Maria Clara Ferrão, Gabriela Gonçalves

This article presents an overview of empirical research on the role of observer variables in rape victim blaming (female attacked by a male perpetrator). The focus is on literature from the last 15 years. The variables observer gender, ambivalent sexism, rape myth acceptance, and rape empathy are discussed in relation to victim blaming. Most research on rape is conducted using diverse methods and approaches that result in a great disparity regarding the role of these variables in predicting blame assignments. Despite the inconsistencies, most studies show that men hold the victim more responsible for her own victimization than women. Findings further indicate that higher scores on sexist ideologies and rape myth acceptance predict higher victim blame, and that higher rape empathy scores predict lower victim blame. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

82-93

Authors: Stanislava Stoyanova, Natali Doseva, Teodor Gergov, Emese Virginás-Tar

Nostalgia and sentimentality are very typical for the old age. There are some characteristics that are perceived as typical for the elderly people in the different cultures, such as being dependent, and needing long-term care. There are also some similarities between the population tendencies in Bulgaria and Romania. The simultaneously acceptance in European Union of both countries also suggests the existence of some similar attitudes towards the past among elderly minority people in both countries. The hypothesis of the study was that together with some similarities, the elderly people from both ethnic minorities in the two countries would differ cross-culturally in their sentimentality and nostalgia related to the past. Sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly minority people (26 Roma people in Bulgaria and 21 Hungarians in Romania) were measured by means of a questionnaire created by Gergov & Stoyanova (2013). The results indicated that the Hungarian minority in Romania was more sentimental and nostalgic than the Roma minority in Bulgaria. More thoughts about the past reported the minority young elders than the minority oldest old. The females from the minority groups were more sentimental than the males from the minority groups. Higher sentimentality and nostalgia among elderly Hungarians could be explained by their higher conservatism and more satisfaction with the hystorical past than Roma people. Roma people living in institutions felt a sense of stability in their present and they shared some positive expectations for the future.

105-113

Authors: Shraddha Sharma, Surila Agarwala

Present research was conducted with the purpose to study the effectiveness of behavioural intervention program in enhancing the self-esteem and collective self-esteem among adolescents. The research was conducted on 74 subjects in the age range of 17-23 years. Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSE; Rosenberg, 1965) and Collective self-esteem scale developed by Luhtanen and Crocker (1992) were used to measure self-esteem and collective self-esteem respectively. A self-structured behavioural intervention program was administered for three months to enhance low level of self-esteem and low level of collective self-esteem among subjects. In the interventional program, teachers and parents were requested to cooperate. Pre- and post-test design was used. Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was applied to test the significance of difference between pre-intervention scores and post-intervention scores of self-esteem and collective self-esteem. The results showed that the mean self-esteem score in pre-measure was 11.31, which increased to 17.42 in post measure and Z value was 7.51 that was significant at .01 level. It suggests that there is significant difference between pre-intervention self-esteem score and post-intervention self-esteem score. Further, the results showed that the mean collective self-esteem score was 34.73 in pre-intervention measure which increased to 53.47 in post-intervention measure. The obtained Z value for collective self-esteem was 7.57 that was also significant at .01 level. It suggests that there is significant difference between pre-intervention collective self-esteem scores and post-intervention collective self-esteem scores. Thus, the results proved the effectiveness of interventional program in enhancing self-esteem and collective self-esteem.

130-131

Authors: Stanislava Stoyanova

No abstract available.

106-110

Authors: Lubomir Stoev Georgiev

The tasks of the contemporary psychology are related to the study of mental energy; health improvement; enhancement of educational attractiveness, including by means of use of electronic devices in the educational process; informing the society regarding the sensitive stages in human development; elaboration of psycho-diagnostic opportunities by means of creation of new instruments and improvement of non-verbal recognition of mental phenomena; enhancing psychological competences regarding the offer of more models that explain mental phenomena, etc.

124-126

Authors: Makoto Yamaguchi

Psychologists have applied the mathematical concept of an equivalence relation to such topics as concept formation and foundations of language. This line of research is not without controversies, and most researchers have only intuitive understanding of this mathematical concept. In this article, accessible explanations are provided on fundamental issues that have implications for empirical research.

134-143

Authors: Irina Roncaglia

The aim of this paper is to present an understanding of the coping mechanisms and coping styles adopted by individuals on the Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) by looking to draw parallels with sports performance psychology and how different sources of stress and anxiety can lead to the adoption of different coping styles. Firstly, an overview of current understanding of what constitute a stressor and how this can affect an individual is presented from sport and exercise psychology literature. Secondly, a model of coping styles is illustrated with the aim to shed light at how different perceptions of levels of stress and anxiety are managed both on an individual and group level. Thirdly, within the context of this understanding, some examples about how to support individuals on the ASC will be illustrated. Finally, implications for future research and reflection will be presented by highlighting the importance of teaching and learning coping and tolerance skills as part of a comprehensive and holistic psycho-educational program.

156-167

Authors: Choon Hee Ong

The purpose of this study is to identify the goal orientation of adult students in the Malaysian context. The finding of this study shows that mastery goal orientation registered the highest mean among the adult students. Therefore, the adult students were found to have adopted mastery goal orientation in their learning process. The analysis of t-Test and One-Way ANOVA indicates that there were no significant group differences in the mean scores of mastery goal orientation among gender, age group and years of experience of the respondents. In addition, this study also attempts to offer the higher education institutions to understand the students’ learning strategies by knowing their goal orientation. It provides information on how deep learning strategies can be integrated with mastery goal orientation so that they are in line to produce better learning outcomes. It is recommended in this study that deep learning methods such as flexible learning and problem-based learning can be used to encourage students to take greater responsibilities for their learning outcomes. In this respect, they will be able to interact with the facilitator on the course material in a more practical and analytical manner. In terms of future research, this study provides validated measures of goal orientation which can be used by future researchers in the similar research setting.

179-186

Authors: Nikolay Ivantchev, Sasho Yordanov

Psychological defense contributes to avoidance of anxiety and any other negative emotions, blocking the real impact of certain threats. Defense mechanisms are our body’s natural way of overcoming of one’s internal conflicts by changing the way we process information about our surroundings thus allowing us to avoid the loss of self-control when placed in a conflict situation. The use of the defense mechanisms negation, reaction formation and pseudo-altruism by these ones learning combat sports was studied. These defense mechanisms form the self-sacrificing defense style. There are some significant gender and age differences, as well as in the type of combat sport regarding the used defense mechanisms. The women practicing combat sports more often used the defense mechanism pseudo-altruism and the self-sacrificing defense style. The latter was preferred by these ones who practiced judo, and these ones who practiced sambo used more often reaction formation. The sportsmen more advanced in age used more often pseudo-altruism.

1-18

Authors: Natasha Virmozelova Angelova

A pilot study was carried out as a part of a long-term psycho-pedagogical experiment for work with children at risk. This psycho-pedagogical experiment consisted of several stages. The first stage was a research of some psychological characteristics of a small group of children at risk, and of a control group of children at the same age. Second - a psycho-pedagogical experiment with the experimental group; the third step was the final study of the both groups with the same methods. The fourth step was to compare the results of both groups at the beginning and the final of the experiment. The aim of this psycho-pedagogical experiment was to probe an educational program for children at risk, enhancing their social and personal skills in conflict situations. Also this program was prepared to give awareness for their personal responsibilities and to encourage their confident decision-making, their emotion control when they overcome some traumas and losses. Situational anxiety was lower at the final study of the experimental group compared to the beginning. There were also some differences between the experimental and control groups in the use of cooperation like a behavioural style in a conflict situation. This strategy was preferred by the control group. This pilot study do not pretend to be definitive in terms of significance of education because of the small number of the respondents in the sample (14 subjects in the experimental and 20 subjects in the control group), but it has shown the importance and necessity of work with children at risk despite their low motivation to participate in extracurricular activities.

28-36

Authors: Alejandro Orgambídez-Ramos, Yolanda Borrego-Alés

With more organizations looking for employees who take the initiative and respond creatively to the challenges of the job, empowerment becomes important at both individual and organizational levels. Empowered employees are generally more satisfied with their work, committed and effective at work. According to Kanter's structural empowerment, this study examines the role of access to opportunity, resources, support and information, and two types of power, formal and informal, as antecedents of job satisfaction. A cross sectional study using questionnaires was conducted. The sample consisted of 226 Spanish university teachers. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses have revealed that intrinsic job satisfaction was significantly predicted by formal power and access to opportunity, and job satisfaction with supervisor was predicted by informal power, and access to resources, information, and support. Results support Kanter's theory of structural empowerment, and suggest strong relationships between job satisfaction and structural empowerment. It is a link between empowering work settings and organizational outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, effectiveness). On a practical level, Kanter's structural empowerment theory provides a framework for understanding empowering workplaces and empowered employees.

55-65

Authors: Pauline E. Ginsberg, Priscilla Wanjiru Kariuki, Charles Kimamo

Kenya has at least 42 tribes. Each of these tribes had a unique way of marking the boundary between childhood and adulthood. It is like once pubertal signs emerged, the adolescent was said to be ready for adulthood. Traditional conceptualization of adolescence is not clearly defined, because while puberty marks the beginning of adolescence today, this was not the case in the traditional society. In the traditional society, when a girl started getting her menstrual periods, she was considered mature and arrangements for marriage were started. Modern rites of passage tend to come closer to how modern text books define adolescence. Most boys undertake circumcision after completing primary school, as they wait to join high school. Upon realizing that the hospital ceremony, unlike the traditional one, is lacking in complementary teachings, some Churches have organized teachings prior to circumcision. For girls, after circumcision for them was banned, alternative rites of passage (ARPs) are being instituted, most often targeting urban girls, but these, too, raise questions: Do alternative rites of passage fulfill the same functions for modern society that traditional ceremonies once fulfilled? And, if they do so for girls, is there reason to believe that they ought to be developed for both genders? This paper examines self-reports of Kenyans spanning three generations regarding social roles and identity-seeking among those who did (primarily older men) and did not (primarily younger men and women of all ages) participate in traditional initiation ceremonies.

80-92

Authors: Oksana Jenenkova

Aggressive driving, being the most dangerous behavior on the roads, attracts special attention of the WHO and the UNO. The term of aggressive driving was introduced in the territory of Latvia in 2004 giving a definition of this violation on the legislative level. The issues connected with the drivers’ ideas on the present phenomenon were studied in the course of a multi-stage research. 2160 drivers representing all regions of Latvia were investigated. As a result of the study, a multi-component model was obtained. Driver’s personality is one of the most important components of the ideas on aggressive driving, evaluation of which was performed in the plane of three factors. Comparative analysis between the drivers and the inspectors of the road traffic regarding this component is performed and the results are presented in this article. Additionally, in the course of the study, a drivers’ typology was specified.

102-105

Authors: Irina Todorova

No abstract available.

169-172

Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

No abstract available.

196-203

Authors: Sabina Alispahić

The academic literature shows that by helping tune out distractions, goals can get individuals' to try harder, work longer, and achieve more. Goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery are usually healthy. But goals imposed by others—sales targets, quarterly returns, standardized test scores—can sometimes have dangerous side effects (Pink, 2009). Because understanding action demands understanding intention, the idea of motivation is natural and readily expressed in everyday language. Cognitive mental events like goals and expectancies can function as a “spring to action”, a moving force that energizes and directs action in purposive ways (Reeve, 2005). Cognitive studies of motivation are dealing with relationship between cognition and action. Literature is indicating a few cognitive elements that can have motivational significance. The article presents the overview of theory and research about the motivational function of plans and goals, according to Goal setting theory (Locke & Latham, 1990) and Self-determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Suggestions for additional research are also indicated.

241-251

Authors: Shalini Sisodia, Ira Das

The main aim of the present study was to examine the effect of job autonomy upon organizational commitment of employees at different hierarchical level. A study was made on randomly selected 100 male employees who work in different organizations in Agra, who were administered Organizational Commitment Scale (by Allen & Meyer, 1990) and Job Autonomy Scale (by Das, Arora, & Singhal, 2000). On the basis of median of the job autonomy scores, the sample was divided into two groups (1) high job autonomy group and (2) low job autonomy group and on the basis of hierarchical level, the employees were divided into two groups (1) 50 high hierarchical level employees’ including managers, etc. and (2) 50 low hierarchical level employees, e.g. clerical staff, etc. The 2x2 factorial design was formed for this purpose and four groups of employees were formed (1) high hierarchy, high autonomy group (2) high hierarchy, low autonomy group(3) low hierarchy, high autonomy group and (4) low hierarchy, low autonomy group. A two-way analysis of variance was employed to compare the level of organizational commitment of each of the four groups. There is a significant difference found between job commitment of employees with high and low job autonomy (F = 4.670, p < .05). There is a significant difference found between job commitment of employees of high hierarchical group and those of low hierarchical group (F = 40.691, p < .01) and significant interaction effect found between job autonomy and hierarchical level upon organizational commitment of employees (F = 6.114, p < .05).

264-282

Authors: Daniela Marinova

Older adults are faced with numerous physical, social and psychological changes in their day-to-day life. In addition, they are inundated by a youth-oriented culture that promotes novelty ideas and challenges to our society. In this article, we examine an important issue related to the relationship between cultural changes and older individuals by combining insights from phenomenological studies on cultural alienation with psychological findings on aspects of beliefs and attitudes of the ageing individual. Based on data collected in Bulgaria (N = 39), we found high levels of cultural alienation in individuals reaching old age. Furthermore, comparative analyses across gender groups revealed that both males and females are similar in the degree of reluctance to accepting and understanding the new cultural forms. The findings are discussed in the context of Jean Améry’s (1968) “On Ageing: Revolt and Resignation” and Simone de Beauvoir’s (1970) essay “The Coming of Age” for better understanding the cultural perception in the aged person. The consistency of these findings challenges for further examination of cultural attitudes across different cultures.

296-316

Authors: Zornitza Ganeva

Ethnically based discrimination and its relation to ethnic stereotypes have been discussed. Comparative analysis of the main characteristics of the “old”, “biological” or “traditional” with the “new”, “modern” or “symbolic” prejudice (Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995) has been made. The results of a longitudinal study of discriminatory behaviour of young people of Bulgarian origin (n = 942; 347 men and 595 women, mean age 21.3 years) in 5 time intervals: in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012, towards the representatives of ethnic minorities as a whole, Turks and Roma have been presented. The Modern Racism Scale (McConahay, Hardee, & Batts, 1981) was applied in two social contexts: personal and community. The results showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the two substitution contexts in 5 time periods of study. The men discriminated more, in comparison with women, both minorities as a whole, and the group of Roma. The persons surveyed, both with extreme left and with extreme right political orientation, discriminated more in comparison with those with centrist convictions.

326-338

Authors: KamalJeet Sandhu, Nidhi Gurbaxani

The study examines the relationship of perceived Life Satisfaction (LS) and Role Efficacy (REI) with transactional styles (TS). The sample comprised of 200 managerial level employees from different units of Infosys at Bangalore and NOIDA, India, and HCL at Delhi, India. Stratified random sampling technique was used to generate data. The results for the overall transactional styles reveal that there was no significant relationship between Life satisfaction and transactional styles. It is observed that there was a significant but negative correlation between role efficacy and transactional styles. About 5.19% of total contribution in determining transactional styles was jointly accounted for by the predictor variables, i.e., perceived Life Satisfaction (X1) and Role Efficacy (X2). Role Efficacy accounted for more contribution than Life Satisfaction in determining transactional styles. Relationship of the predictor variables with different transactional styles is also analyzed.

358-375

Authors: Teodor Gergov, Stanislava Stoyanova

A new questionnaire measuring sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people was developed based on the scale Sentimentality from HEXACO Personality Inventory – Revised (Lee & Ashton, 2013), the scale Sentimentality from Psychological Inventory of Criminal-Thinking Styles (PICTS) (Walters, 2002; Walters & Geyer, 2005); the subscale Sentimentality from Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised (TCI-R) (Cloninger, Svrakic, & Przybeck, 1993). A sample of 121 Bulgarian elderly people was studied. The results revealed the importance of the past for the elderly people. The questionnaire had good psychometric properties. Four factors were extracted - Past emotions continue in the present; Nostalgia of the Past; Sentimental compensation; and One’s past perceived by the others. Comparison of the average values on the factors divided into the number of the items in the factor indicated that nostalgia of the past was the most strongly expressed among the elderly people, followed by the experiences related to one’s past perceived by the other people, past emotions continuing in the present, and the attempts for sentimental compensation of some past bad deeds.