The international journal Studia Psychologica is published by the Institute of Experimental Psychology, Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovak Republic, since 1956. Studia Psychologica is open-access journal since 2016. This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the users or their institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
Institute of Experimental Psychology, Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovak Republic
A Psychological Perspective on Entrepreneurship: Insights from Micro-, Meso- and Multilevel Analyses
Entrepreneurship is a vital force in the economic development of societies, with small and medium-sized enterprises providing the majority of employment in many countries. For this reason, research in management and economics is interested in analyzing entrepreneurship from a macro-level perspective. However, enterprises are created and managed by people, which is why micro- and meso-level perspectives, specific to psychological research, offer valuable insights into entrepreneurship as well. We explain these three levels of analysis to demonstrate how psychology can shed light on entrepreneurship at each of them and extend these insights through multilevel investigations. We also introduce the collection of papers included in this special issue, which provides new findings from quantitative and qualitative studies representing different levels of analysis and presents new advancements in psychological measurement of entrepreneurship-related constructs.
Copyright (c) 2026 Studia Psychologica https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Perceived Intellectual Aging: More Wellbeing and Personality than Age and Intellect
Intellectual aging refers to the decline of cognitive abilities due to the processes of aging. This study addresses the question, how the perceived intellectual aging (PIA) depends on age, cognitive abilities level, personality and wellbeing. The results of the analyses being performed confirmed the hypothesis that PIA can be predicted by age and cognitive abilities level, yet, somewhat surprisingly, clearly show that dimensions of wellbeing and personality are far stronger predictors. Wellbeing dimensions accounted for about 23 percent of the variance in PIA, personality dimensions for 17 percent, cognitive abilities level for 7 percent and chronological age only about 1 percent. Thus, the results of the study clearly suggest that, in the perception of intellectual aging signs, the effects of chronological age and the level of cognitive abilities are strongly overshadowed by the personality and wellbeing characteristics.
Copyright (c) 2025 Studia Psychologica https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Between Fathers: The Role of Multiple Liminality in Children’s Attribution of Fatherhood in Stepfamilies
With shifting family structures, an increasing number of children experience more than two parental figures throughout their upbringing. While existing research has predominantly focused on dyadic relationships between children and either their parents or stepparents, this study, through the lens of liminality, examines how children raised in stepfamilies perceive the fathering role of both biological fathers and stepfathers. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 adult children and mothers living in stepfamilies. All interviews were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, which identified overarching patterns. Subsequently, interpretative phenomenological analysis was applied to the children's interviews to capture the individualized processes through which they attribute the fathering role. While children's accounts revealed their meaning-making, mothers’ interviews provided contextual insight. We identified three patterns in how children attributed fatherhood: 1) the biological father as the only father, 2) the stepfather as a father figure, and 3) no one is the father. Across all patterns, children experienced both father figures as liminal, both “both fathers and non-fathers” and “neither fathers nor non-fathers”, while still attributing the fathering role to one of them or none. It depended on factors such as the child's age and agency, emotional ties, maternal gatekeeping, and the father's investment.
Testing the Obstacles to Women’s Entrepreneurship Scale (TOWES): Adaptation and Validation of the TOP WOMAN Scale
Women continue to face gender-related barriers in both accessing leadership positions and becoming entrepreneurs. For this reason, the present study focuses specifically on women to adapt the Testing the Obstacles to Promotion of Women to Management (TOP WOMAN) scale (Ramos et al., 2022), originally designed to measure perceived barriers to access to promotion, and to validate this adapted version, Testing the Obstacles to Women’s Entrepreneurship Scale (TOWES), in the context of entrepreneurship, using a sample of 281 Spanish women. The TOWES presents adequate psychometric properties, comprising a six-factor structure: Motivational/Internal Barriers and Barriers related to Work-family Balance, Gender Stereotypes, Access to Influential Networks, Unequal Opportunities, and Business Culture. The six dimensions showed adequate reliability and construct, concurrent, convergent, and discriminant validity. Unlike the original scale, which consists of seven dimensions, in TOWES the barriers of Unequal Performance Appraisal and Unequal HR Practices are merged into just one. These findings support the validity and theoretical robustness of the adapted scale across different contexts. Moreover, they provide valuable insights for improving campaigns and training programs, identifying barriers to entrepreneurship among women in a specific population, developing objectives for raising awareness among female entrepreneurs, and providing job guidance for women.
Special Issue Psychological Perspective on Entrepreneurship
Personality Traits and COVID-19 Vaccination Status in Slovakia: The Role of Trust in Health Institutions, and COVID-19 Pseudo-Science and Conspiracy Beliefs
The present study focuses on the Big Five personality traits as predictors of COVID-19 vaccination status in the population of Slovakia. The sample consisted of 1838 inhabitants of Slovakia (47% men, 53% women, mean age 45.41 years) recruited through an online panel of a research agency. Participants were administered the Big Five personality test BFI-2-S, and items regarding vaccine pseudo-science, conspiracy beliefs, and trust in medical institutions. They also reported their COVID-19 vaccination status. The results showed that after controlling for gender, age, education, and social status, agreeableness and negative emotionality predicted the vaccination status; in both cases, lower levels of the trait predicted not being vaccinated. The effect of agreeableness on vaccination status was mediated by low levels of COVID-19 pseudo-science and conspiracy beliefs and higher trust in medical institutions.
Special Issue: Strategies to counteract autocratic political propaganda, social-media-boosted fake news, and conspiracy theories; empirical groundwork
Continuing Instead of Retiring: A Qualitative Study and an Entrepreneurship Continuation Model
Considering the societal and economic importance of creating and maintaining businesses, it is vital to get insights into factors stimulating older entrepreneurs to continue running a business. Especially there is a need of empirically grounded psychological understanding of antecedents of decision to continue running a business even when one could be retired. Our qualitative study was conducted to explore older entrepreneurs’ motivations for the decision to continue operating a company at the retirement age. By analyzing 50 in-depth semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs through thematic analysis, we have identified three main themes: motivation to continue, life stage resources, and life stage demands, along with specific codes expressing each theme. Based on the results we propose the entrepreneurship continuation model explaining older entrepreneurs’ decision to continue their activity.
Drifting Away: An Experimental Investigation of Mission Drift Consequences in Social Entrepreneurship from an Employee Perspective
Social entrepreneurship is a hybrid form of entrepreneurship combining the aspirations to fulfil a social mission and independently generate financial income on a competitive market. While social enterprises offer notable chances to make up for inefficiencies in sustainable social value creation by governments and Non-Governmental Organizations during social hardships, they face the risk of losing their social missions over time. This effect is coined mission drift (MD). To date, MD-research suffers from notable shortcomings like the negligence of possible effects on social enterprise employees and robust experimental evidence. My study employs a sample of university students (N = 137) and a vignette-based experimental design to examine how different kinds of MD (no MD; soft MD, strong MD, mission shift from social to ecological) affect important work-related attitudes of social enterprise employees. MANOVA results yield that, compared to no MD, strong MD has a notable and broad detrimental impact. Furthermore, indications for differential effects depending on MD-magnitude and for mission shift are found. Despite acknowledgeable limitations, the current study emphasizes the importance of an employee perspective on MD and offers rare causal evidence on MD-consequences.
From Entrepreneur to Employee: A Multilevel Study on Negative Affect and Work Engagement
This study examined how entrepreneurs’ work-related negative affect—specifically anxiety and depression—relates to employees’ work engagement in small firms. Based on emotional contagion and social cognitive theories, the study investigated whether entrepreneurs’ negative affect impacts employees, thereby reducing their work engagement. The sample included 97 entrepreneurs and 852 employees from businesses in the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. Data were gathered through surveys in participants’ native languages. Multilevel modelling revealed that entrepreneurs’ anxiety and depression were negatively related to their own work engagement. Employees experiencing higher levels of anxiety and depression also showed lower work engagement. Emotional contagion was observed, as entrepreneurs’ negative affect was positively linked to employees’ corresponding emotional states. However, no direct relationship was found between entrepreneurs’ negative affect and employee work engagement. Indirect effects were identified through employees’ negative affect and entrepreneurs’ work engagement. These findings suggest that entrepreneurs may influence employee work engagement via affective contagion and role modelling. The study extends previous single-level research by demonstrating the cross-level effect of entrepreneurs’ emotional well-being on employee engagement, highlighting the psychological interdependence within small business settings.
Validation of the Slovak Version of Tolerance Scale on a Sample of Young Adults and Adolescents
As societies become more diverse, tolerance plays a crucial role in fostering peaceful coexistence, particularly in the context of global migration, where immigrants and refugees often face prejudice and discrimination. This study builds on Hjerm et al.’s (2020) conceptualization of tolerance, which emphasizes a value orientation towards difference, and its distinct nature from prejudice. The primary objective was to adapt the Tolerance Scale into Slovak and evaluate its psychometric properties among young adults and adolescents, with a total sample of 684 participants. The results demonstrated that the Tolerance Scale exhibited satisfactory psychometric properties, including measurement invariance across age groups. Additionally, we provided evidence supporting the discriminant validity of tolerance in relation to prejudice. This study contributes to the methodological and theoretical advancement of tolerance measurement within diverse cultural contexts.
Disinformation in Politics and Science: Attitudes, World Views, and their Determinants
Psychometric Evaluation of the Slovak Version of the Self-Reflection and Insight Scale (SRIS)
The aim of the present study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Slovak version of the Self-Reflection and Insight Scale (SRIS), including both the original 20-item version and the recently introduced 12-item short version. Two samples, totaling 440 participants, were used to examine the factorial structure, convergent validity, and test-retest reliability of the scale in the first phase. In the second phase, the factorial structure of the short version was replicated on 1132 participants. The results indicated that the long version of the scale did not meet the required criteria. However, our findings provide initial support for the short version of the scale. Despite its limitations, this study serves as an important first step in the validation process for the Short Self-Reflection and Insight Scale and potentially provides a basis for future research using this version of the scale in the Slovak language.
Young Entrepreneurship in the Digital Age: Young People's Entrepreneurial Journeys through Social Media
This study examines how young entrepreneurs utilize social media platforms in their entrepreneurial processes, focusing on the opportunities and challenges these platforms present and the psychological mechanisms that influence their experiences. Using Q methodology, the study explores young entrepreneurs’ self-expression, idea and skill development, feedback reception, and the impact of social media’s competitive environment. The research sample consists of 20 Turkish young entrepreneurs (aged 18–34) who actively engage in entrepreneurial activities through social media. The Q method analysis findings highlight three key factors shaping entrepreneurs’ perceptions: Opportunities of Social Media, Psychological Impacts of Rivalry and Feedback, and Critical Perspective. Social media was viewed as a double-edged sword, simultaneously enabling creativity and networking while presenting challenges such as trust and psychological pressures. Gender-based differences emerged, with women emphasizing collaboration and opportunity while men focused on competition and feedback. Furthermore, the content analysis findings revealed both positive and negative perceptions, underscoring the dual role of social media as a driver of innovation and a source of stress. This study contributes to the growing literature on social media and entrepreneurship by offering a culturally contextualized understanding of how Turkish young entrepreneurs navigate the opportunities and challenges of digital platforms.
A Better Bullshitter Does Not Have to Be a Bigger Bullshitter: Relations Among Bullshitting Measures and Cognitive and Personality Predictors of Bullshitting Ability
Bullshit is considered a common part of interpersonal communication. People differ not only in how frequently they use bullshit but also in their ability to produce bullshit that effectively influences social impressions. In our study (N = 390), we aimed to examine predictors (verbal ability and divergent thinking) and correlates (dark triad traits) of bullshit ability and to relate the extent of this ability to its self-reported use. Additionally, we focused on the relationship between various methods of measuring bullshit (overclaiming and bullshitting frequency). Both verbal ability and divergent thinking were significant predictors of bullshit ability. Only Machiavellianism correlated positively, but weakly with bullshit ability. We did not find a statistically significant relationship between bullshit ability and bullshitting frequency, nor overclaiming and bullshitting frequency. Our results provide new insights into individual differences among bullshit producers and, for the first time, simultaneously link previously unexplored measures of bullshit: frequency and quality.
Withdrawal-Motivated Behavior Does Not Connect Internet Sex Addiction and Sexual Objectification, but Craving Does
Men who score higher on internet sex addiction are more likely to objectify women. In this study, we examined whether withdrawal-motivated behaviors (e.g., seeking sexually stimulating environments after cutting off online pornography consumption) connect behaviors typical for sexual objectification with internet sex addiction symptomatology, as suggested by Roza et. all’s symptomatology chain (2023). We analyzed a network of 1,272 heterosexual men (Mage = 32.93, SDage = 9.44). The results went against our expectations - no withdrawal-motivated behaviors laid on a direct path between addictive symptomatology and objectifying behaviors. Instead, we found that frequent preoccupation with thoughts on online pornographic content and the lack of ability to limit one’s exposure to online pornography were associated with objectifying behaviors, and may, therefore, strengthen or sustain sexual objectification in sexually addicted men. Our results highlight the complexity of the relationship between sexual objectification and addictive symptomatology and provide a basis for the further causal study of this relationship.
Tracking Emotion: Eye-Tracking Insights into Expressive Flexibilityand Context Sensitivity in Emotional Face Processing
Expressive flexibility, a prototypical form of regulatory flexibility, is recognized for its positive impact on social adaptation and mental health. Contextual flexibility is theoretically conceptualized as a crucial component of regulatory flexibility. Despite the link between expressive flexibility and context sensitivity, the extent to which expressive flexibility shapes the dynamic processes of context sensitivity remains insufficiently understood. This study employed a classic visual search paradigm combined with eye-tracking technology to investigate how attentional processes related to context sensitivity differ across varying levels of expressive flexibility. Sixty-five participants (52 females, average age 23.34 ± 2.13 years) with either high or low levels of expressive flexibility completed a visual search task using emotional faces as cues. The findings revealed that individuals with low expressive flexibility (LEF) exhibited delayed detection of negative cues compared to positive ones, whereas those with high expressive flexibility (HEF) showed no significant differences in processing emotional cues of different valences. Moreover, HEF participants demonstrated faster attentional orienting and less prolonged attention to emotional cues compared to their LEF counterparts. These results provide novel insights into the association between individual differences in expressive flexibility and dynamics of context sensitivity.
Development and Validation of the Entrepreneurial Work Ability Scale
The main purpose of this study is to develop and validate a scale for measuring work ability among entrepreneurs. The Entrepreneurial Work Ability Scale (EWAS), consisting of eight items, is developed based on a thorough literature study and an elaborate analysis of its psychometric qualities. The factor structure, reliability, and criterion validity of the scale were examined in two studies using two separate samples (study 1 N = 2452, study 2 N = 201) of entrepreneurs in the Netherlands. Our results demonstrate that the newly developed scale is reliable, captures one factor, and shows criterion validity. As predicted, job demands uncertainty and risk, and workload, appeared to be negatively related to entrepreneurial work ability, while autonomy and personal resources were positively related to work ability. In turn, entrepreneurial work ability relates positively to entrepreneurial personal financial success and to personal fulfillment. From our empirical work, we conclude that the EWAS is a psychometrically sound instrument that can be used for further investigating determinants of entrepreneurial success within the theoretical framework of the Job Demands-Resources Model. Besides, the EWAS is a useful tool for entrepreneurs, business coaches, and institutions that want to help preserve and improve the work ability among entrepreneurs.
Partner Preferences, Dating Expectations, and Dating Violence among Moroccan and Spanish Adolescents in Southeastern Spain
This study investigates partner preferences, dating expectations, and teen dating violence (TDV) among Spanish and Moroccan adolescents, focusing on cultural and gender differences. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 18 public schools located in disadvantaged, rural, suburban, and multicultural areas of southeastern Spain, with a sample of 1,002 students: 778 Spanish (77.6%) and 224 first- or second-generation Moroccan immigrant youth. The findings reveal significant cultural distinctions in relationship norms and expectations. Moroccan adolescents, particularly females, are more likely to remain single, influenced by cultural values that prioritize premarital virginity and marriage. Spanish adolescents emphasize intrinsic relationship qualities such as fidelity and communication, while Moroccan peers—especially males—place greater importance on extrinsic factors like beauty and sexuality. Moroccan females prioritize religious and cultural partner compatibility, in contrast to the relative indifference of Spaniards toward nationality and religion. Both groups exhibit high levels of TDV, with Moroccan adolescents reporting greater victimization and perpetration. Regression analyses highlight that extrinsic relationship preferences are associated with increased TDV, particularly among Moroccan adolescents, whereas intrinsic preferences are linked to lower violence among Spaniards.
The Relationship between Gratitude, Perceived Social Support, and Coping Strategies in Community Correctional Personnel: Evidence from Indirect Effects and Cross-Lagged Analysis
The main purpose of this study is to explore the longitudinal mediating effect of perceived social support in the relationship between gratitude and coping strategies among community correctional personnel. On March 20, 2024, and June 20, 2024, we conducted a longitudinal follow-up survey with 299 community correctional personnel using the Gratitude Scale, the Perceived Social Support Scale, and the Simplified Coping Style Scale. Gratitude directly and significantly predicts coping strategies and also significantly predicts coping strategies through the indirect effect of perceived social support. Cross-lagged analysis results show that perceived social support (LW1) can significantly predict gratitude (G2), and perceived social support (LW1) can significantly predict coping strategies (Y2). The longitudinal mediating effect of perceived social support between gratitude and coping strategies is significant. It is necessary for community and judicial departments to enhance gratitude education among community correctional personnel, fostering a sense of gratitude that helps them better understand and appreciate the support they receive from others, thereby enhancing their social responsibility and psychological well-being.
Father Involvement and Adolescents' Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors: Maternal Depressive Symptom as a Mediator and Maternal Social Support as a Moderator
A significant ambiguity remains regarding whether maternal depressive symptoms mediate the relationship between father involvement and adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing behaviors, particularly within Ethiopia’s patriarchal cultural context. Addressing this research gap, the present study aimed to investigate the mediating role of maternal depressive symptoms in the association between father involvement and adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing behaviors, as well as the moderating influence of maternal social support on this mediation pathway. The study utilized data from a sample of 404 adolescents (Mage = 15.81 ± 0.71; 51.7% male). Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that maternal depressive symptoms partially mediated the relationship between father involvement and adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Additionally, maternal social support significantly moderated the role of father involvement on maternal depressive symptoms and the role of maternal depressive symptoms on adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing behaviors.
Mental Health PrAdolescents’ Mental Health
Do not Let Your Primal World Beliefs Burn You Out: An Initial Unravelling of the Role of Primal World Beliefs in Core Burnout Symptoms Experience
Despite the increasing research attention devoted to the role of individual psychological factors in the development of burnout in the last decades, little is known about the role of individuals’ beliefs regarding the general character of the world. Based on the emerging line of research dedicated to primal world beliefs, the present study with N=1,237 participants (M = 42.9 years, SD = 11.93) aims to examine the role of primary primal (i.e., seeing the world as a good place) and three secondary primal world beliefs (i.e., seeing the world as safe, enticing, and alive) in the experience of burnout and its core dimensions. The results of CB-SEM showed that primary primal was negatively related to the severity of burnout symptoms, and this relationship was partially mediated via psychological capital (PsyCap). Additionally, the indirect role of PsyCap was also supported when secondary primals and core dimensions of burnout were differentiated. Safe secondary primal negatively predicted exhaustion and both safe and enticing secondary primals negatively predicted mental distancing, cognitive impairment, and emotional impairment. This study provides novel and promising findings and offers a starting point for future research on how general beliefs about the world shape people's experiences in the workplace domain.
Enhancing Work Attitudes through Transformational Leadership in Higher Education Institutions
Although sustaining universities in the developing countries depends mainly on finance, managerial sustainability and academic leadership are still required. This study examines the impact of transformational leadership on faculty members’ work attitudes within Algerian higher education institutions. Drawing on a large-scale survey of faculty members across nine Western Algerian universities, the research investigates the mediating roles of research self-efficacy and perceived job stress in this relationship. The findings reveal that transformational leadership positively influences both organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Interestingly, the study uncovers a significant indirect effect of research self-efficacy on organizational commitment, yet a non-significant one from the job stress mediator. The results merit further investigation across diverse institutional contexts.
Relationship between Collective Victimhood and Defensive Strategies
The current study explores the psychological mechanisms underlying the relationship between collective victimhood beliefs and defensive strategies, including conspiracy theory conditioned on temporality and system justification. Drawing on a sample of 223 participants, the study distinguishes between historical and comparative victimhood beliefs and examines the mediating role of group-level worldviews – specifically distrust, perceived injustice, and vulnerability. Using path analysis, the findings reveal that historical victimhood beliefs are more strongly associated with defensive strategies compared to comparative victimhood beliefs, emphasizing the role of cultural and historical context in shaping these effects. Distrust emerged as a dominant mediator for historical conspiracy theories, while perceived injustice mediated the effect of historical victim beliefs on contemporary conspiracy theories. Notably, vulnerability did not mediate conspiracy theories but was linked to system justification through a negative association. These results underscore the nuanced interplay between collective victim beliefs, worldviews, and defensive strategies, shedding light on the socio-political implications of historical traumas in intergroup relations and public discourse.
Surprising Similarities in Cognitive Footprint of Scientism and Irrational Beliefs
Scientism is a belief that science is superior to any other human endeavor, capable of solving all human problems and that scientists are always knowledgeable and ethical. As this view is extreme and somewhat dogmatic, we tested whether it draws from the same information processing style as beliefs traditionally deemed irrational. This is especially interesting since scientistic and irrational beliefs are incompatible content-wise and thus negatively related. In Study 1 (N = 1003, representative for Serbia) scientistic beliefs were more frequent than anti-scientific beliefs and, expectedly, correlated negatively with conspiracist, paranormal, and pseudoscientific beliefs. Study 2 (online community sample; 186 scientists, 147 laypeople) showed that uncritical trust in science positively correlated to need for closure and uncertainty intolerance, while uncritical trust in scientists negatively correlated with cognitive reflection and cognitive abilities. This indeed indicates a superficial informational processing style typically observed in people prone to irrational beliefs. All reported relationships, however, need to be independently replicated. This apparent paradox illustrates that science could be used as a heuristic, and it highlights the need to cultivate a more realistic view of the science process through formal education and media.
The Moderating Role of Psychological Essentialism in The Link Between Threat to Symbolic Purity and Exclusionary Attitudes Toward Foreigners
Purity is a component of morality, which relates to perceptions of cleanliness (i.e., physical aspect) and divinity (i.e., symbolic aspect). Purity violations threaten one’s traditional values and beliefs and motivate people to recover purity by avoiding something atypical. Like the physical aspect of purity, violating the symbolic aspect of purity can lead people to recover the purity status by excluding out-group members. However, this link is possibly influenced by psychological essentialism, which is the degree of one’s perceptions about a clearly built boundary between social categories (e.g., men and women). Therefore, this study investigated the moderating role of essentialist beliefs in the relationship between purity-related morality in a symbolic sense and exclusionary attitudes toward foreigners. Two experimental studies were conducted in Japan, where immigrants play an essential role in securing the working-age population because of its recent “super-aged” situation. It was predicted that only lower essentialists would be sensitive to the threat, but not higher essentialists. The results did not support the hypothesis in the expected direction, but some valuable implications and suggestions for future research were made. In particular, this study revealed that symbolic purity may play a role in intergroup relations.
Second Language Shapes Emotional Facial Expression Perception, but Only When Words are Unmasked: Evidence from Masked and Unmasked Affective Priming Paradigms
The present study explored the influence of second language (L2) emotion words on the perception of emotional facial expressions. Our study encompassed two types of L2 emotion words: emotion-label words (Experiments 1a, 2a, 3) and emotion-laden words (Experiments 1b, 2b, 4). Five cohorts of Chinese- English bilingual individuals (with a total of N = 144 for all experiments) were assigned the task of evaluating the valence of faces that were presented subsequent to being preceded by either masked or unmasked second language (L2) emotion words serving as primes. The affective priming effects were scrutinized across both masked and unmasked conditions between emotion-label words and emotion-laden words in L2. Surprisingly, despite an increase in L2 proficiency, neither the emotion-label words nor the emotion-laden words were able to impact emotional facial expression perception in the masked priming paradigm. However, in the unmasked priming condition, both types of emotion words demonstrated a priming effect on emotional facial expression perception. These findings are in agreement with the disembodied account, which posits that L2 emotion words are not processed affectively. They highlight the significance of utilizing diverse emotional stimuli to investigate the intricate interplay between emotion and bilingualism.
Do Stories About Lying and Honesty Reduce Lie-Telling Behaviors in Children?
Since lying is a negative phenomenon, it has inspired theoretical and applied research on how to reduce such behaviors. Therefore, in the current study, we aimed to examine whether children’s lie-telling behaviors are affected by honesty- and lie-themed stories using an experimental design. A total of 176 children (85 girls), aged 4 to 5 years, were included in the study. We randomly assigned participants to three different experimental groups in which they were told the importance of honesty (the honesty story), the short-term negative consequences of lying (Pinocchio), and the fact that lying is a terrible behavior with important consequences (The Boy Who Cried Wolf). No moral story was told to the children in the control group. Then, we utilized a “temptation resistance task” to measure the lie-telling behaviors of the children in the control and experimental groups. The results showed that the children in the control group lied more often than the children in all the experimental groups. The analyses conducted to ascertain the differences among the groups also revealed that children who listened to Pinocchio used significantly fewer lie-telling behaviors compared to the children who listened to the honesty story and the children in the control group.
Copyright (c) 2024 Studia Psychologica https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Development and Initial Validation of the Very Short Form of the Short Dark Tetrad Scale: Its Links to Alexithymia, and Internet Trolling
The purpose of this study was to develop a Very Short Form (SD4-VSF) of the Short Dark Tetrad Scale (SD4). In Study I, the 28-item SD4 was reduced to the 16-item SD4-VSF following exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The study included 440 participants (75.9% female; 24.1% male). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted on the 16-item SD4-VSF in Study II. Furthermore, the scale's reliability was examined using Cronbach’s α, McDonald’s ω, Guttmann’s λ6, and composite reliability. Following the results of the CFA, confirmatory factor analysis for the 16-item SD4-VSF demonstrated an acceptable fit. Study II included 456 participants (63.2% female; 36.8% male). Study III examined the mediating role of alexithymia in the relationship between SD4 and trolling. Study III included 394 participants (56.1% female; 43.9% male). The results of the mediation analysis indicated that alexithymia plays a significant mediating role in the relationship between the dark tetrad (excluding narcissism) and trolling.
The Impact of Gratitude on Coping Styles among Chinese College Students: The Mediating Effects of Perceived Social Support and Self-Esteem
In the 21st century, facing immense pressure and challenges, people often exhibit more passive coping styles, such as avoidance or self-blame. Negative coping styles do not fundamentally reduce pressure and challenges; instead, they tend to amplify their impact. Gratitude helps promote more positive coping styles in dealing with life’s challenges, making it necessary to study how gratitude influences coping mechanisms. This study used highly reliable and valid measures of gratitude, Perceived Social Support, Self-Esteem, and the Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire to conduct a cross-sectional survey of 1,666 Chinese college students. The findings were: 1) Gratitude significantly and positively predicts Perceived Social Support, Self-Esteem, and coping styles; 2) Perceived Social Support significantly and positively predicts Self-Esteem and coping styles; 3) Self-Esteem significantly and positively predicts coping styles; 4) Gratitude significantly predicts coping styles through the chain mediation effects of Perceived Social Support and Self-Esteem. This study suggests that we should address the issue at its source by enhancing gratitude education, helping individuals better recognize the social support resources around them. This approach not only helps protect their self-esteem but also leads to more positive coping styles.
Health-Related Disinformation: Should We Focus More on Reducing the Mindware Gap or Corrupted Mindware?
The main aim of our study was to investigate whether COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs are driven by a lack of useful and potentially protective mindware or by contaminated mindware. On the quota sample of 501 adult Slovaks, we also investigated whether personally relevant content improves scientific reasoning by using two versions of scientific reasoning tasks – one with coronavirus scenarios and one neutral, but we found no effect. While probabilistic reasoning and scientific knowledge negatively predict belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories, anti-scientific attitudes significantly contribute to their higher acceptance. Thus, addressing anti-scientific attitudes and developing probabilistic reasoning and scientific knowledge may be crucial to attenuate health-related conspiracy beliefs.
Effective Deep Learning Requires a “Balance” between Need for Cognition, Flow Experience, and Positive Academic Emotions
Students constitute the primary agents in the educational process, and their individual cognitive differences coupled with emotional experiences significantly influence the efficacy of learning outcomes. This investigation encompassed 550 collegiate and senior secondary school students, aiming to elucidate the interrelationships among the need for cognition, deep learning strategies, flow experience, and positive academic emotions. The findings revealed that: 1) A substantial positive correlation exists between deep learning and the need for cognition; 2) flow experience, characterized by a state of heightened focus and immersion in activities, exerts a considerable mediating effect on the relationship between deep learning and the need for cognition; 3) Positive academic emotions serve as a regulatory mechanism in the nexus between the need for cognition and deep learning.The study observed that an excessively high need for cognition may attenuate the beneficial influence of positive academic emotions on deep learning. Concurrently, positive academic emotions significantly moderate the relationship between flow experience and deep learning. With an elevated level of positive academic emotion, the facilitative impact of flow experience on deep learning is more pronounced. These results imply that optimization of deep learning necessitates a considered "balance" among need for cognition, flow experience, positive academic emotions.