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International Journal of Environmental... Dec 2022Finding and retaining employment significantly challenges individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The employment rates of individuals with ASD are described as...
Finding and retaining employment significantly challenges individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The employment rates of individuals with ASD are described as extremely low, barred by various environmental, occupational, and personal factors. Illness identity is how a person's health condition integrates with their identity and daily life and relates to self-esteem, employment, and quality of life. Adults with ASD may experience challenges developing positive identities within social and work environments, but illness identity has not been studied among this population. This study examines the autism identity of adults with ASD and the relationships to their self-reported work-related self-efficacy and quality of life. Seventeen participants aged 19-47 years diagnosed with ASD completed the Illness Identity Questionnaire, Work-Related Self-Efficacy Scale and World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment. Participants reported significantly higher autism acceptance feelings. Negative feelings about living with autism were significantly correlated to lower work-related self-efficacy. Higher levels of enrichment feelings were significantly associated with a higher quality of life. These findings highlight the effect of illness identity on the work-related self-efficacy and quality of life among individuals with ASD. Allied health professionals and educators can assist these individuals in raising their awareness of how they perceive their autism, and in promoting its positive perception.
Topics: Humans; Adult; Autistic Disorder; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Quality of Life; Self Efficacy; Self Concept
PubMed: 36612444
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph20010122 -
PloS One 2020The most readily-observable and influential cue to one's credibility is their confidence. Although one's confidence correlates with knowledge, one should not always...
The most readily-observable and influential cue to one's credibility is their confidence. Although one's confidence correlates with knowledge, one should not always trust confident sources or disregard hesitant ones. Three experiments (N = 662; 3- to 12-year-olds) examined the developmental trajectory of children's understanding of 'calibration': whether a person's confidence or hesitancy correlates with their knowledge. Experiments 1 and 2 provide evidence that children use a person's history of calibration to guide their learning. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed a developmental progression in calibration understanding: Children preferred a well-calibrated over a miscalibrated confident person by around 4 years, whereas even 7- to 8-year-olds were insensitive to calibration in hesitant people. The widespread implications for social learning, impression formation, and social cognition are discussed.
Topics: Child; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Comprehension; Cues; Humans; Knowledge; Learning; Self Concept; Social Behavior; Trust
PubMed: 31986147
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227026 -
Journal of Personality and Social... May 2021Theories of narcissism emphasize the dynamic processes within and between grandiosity and vulnerability. Research seeking to address this has either not studied...
Theories of narcissism emphasize the dynamic processes within and between grandiosity and vulnerability. Research seeking to address this has either not studied grandiosity and vulnerability together or has used dispositional measures to assess what are considered to be momentary states. Emerging models of narcissism suggest grandiosity and vulnerability can further be differentiated into a three-factor structure-Exhibitionistic Grandiosity, Entitlement, and Vulnerability. Research in other areas of maladaptive personality (e.g., borderline personality disorder) has made headway in engaging data collection and analytic methods that are specifically meant to examine such questions. The present study took an exploratory approach to studying fluctuations within and between grandiose and vulnerable states. Fluctuations-operationalized as gross variability, instability, and lagged effects-were examined across three samples (two undergraduate and a community sample oversampled for narcissistic features; total person N = 862, total observation N = 36,631). Results suggest variability in narcissistic states from moment to moment is moderately associated with dispositional assessments of narcissism. Specifically, individuals who are dispositionally grandiose express both grandiosity and vulnerability, and vary in their overall levels of grandiosity and vulnerability over time. On the other hand, dispositionally vulnerable individuals tend to have high levels of vulnerability and low levels of grandiosity. Entitlement plays a key role in the processes that underlie narcissism and narcissistic processes appear unique to the construct and not reflective of broader psychological processes (e.g., self-esteem). Future research should consider using similar methods and statistical techniques on different timescales to study dynamics within narcissism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Topics: Adult; Ecological Momentary Assessment; Female; Humans; Male; Narcissism; Personality; Personality Disorders; Personality Inventory; Self Concept; Students; Surveys and Questionnaires; Young Adult
PubMed: 33090821
DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000370 -
PloS One 2023Urbanists have long been interested in understanding what makes people satisfied with their neighborhoods. However, relatively little is known about how residents'...
Urbanists have long been interested in understanding what makes people satisfied with their neighborhoods. However, relatively little is known about how residents' personality traits may affect their neighborhood satisfaction. In this paper, we explore the direct and indirect associations of personality traits with neighborhood satisfaction in a representative sample of adults in Michigan (USA). We find that each of the personality traits in the five factor model are associated with neighborhood satisfaction in the same way that they are known to be associated with subjective well-being. However, we fail to observe evidence that personality traits moderate the association between perceptions of neighborhoods and neighborhood satisfaction, or that personality's association with neighborhood satisfaction is mediated by neighborhood perceptions. We conclude that there is potential for drawing on theoretical and empirical developments in positive psychology for understanding neighborhood satisfaction, but observe that the underlying mechanisms for the association between personality and neighborhood satisfaction remain unknown.
Topics: Adult; Humans; Personality; Residence Characteristics; Personal Satisfaction; Personality Disorders; Michigan
PubMed: 36920892
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0282437 -
International Journal of Environmental... Aug 2021The aim of this study was to assess the level of creativity and personality traits and their mutual influence on medical students using the DECAS and BWAS. We performed...
The aim of this study was to assess the level of creativity and personality traits and their mutual influence on medical students using the DECAS and BWAS. We performed a prospective descriptive study on 119 medical students from Târgu Mureș, Romania between November 2020 and July 2021, who answered questions relating to the BWAS and DECAS scales to evaluate their creativity and personality traits. Our findings pointed out a reverse correlation between age and both the original and revised BWAS (r = -0.2037, = 0.0263; r = -0.1931, = 0.0354). In terms of extraversion, we found a significant positive correlation for both openness (r = 0.3032, = 0.0008) and emotional stability (r = 0.2868, = 0.0016) and a negative correlation between extraversion and agreeability (r = -0.2394, = 0.0087). Regarding creativity, we found positive correlations between emotional stability and both the original and revised BWAS (r = 0.20, = 0.0279; r = 0.20, = 0.0245). Medical students' creativity might be positively influenced by emotional stability and seems to decrease with age. Higher extraversion scores could be related to increased openness and emotional stability as well as decreased agreeability.
Topics: Communication; Extraversion, Psychological; Humans; Personality; Prospective Studies; Students, Medical
PubMed: 34501788
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18179201 -
PloS One 2022The number of people seeking care for symptoms of exhaustion and stress is a major concern in several countries. The condition is a challenging and life-changing...
BACKGROUND
The number of people seeking care for symptoms of exhaustion and stress is a major concern in several countries. The condition is a challenging and life-changing experience, and a deeper understanding of support to help people on sick leave due to stress-related exhaustion in their early stages is needed to facilitate recovery.
OBJECTIVE
The aim was to explore experiences of support in people with stress-related exhaustion being on sick-leave less than six months.
METHOD
A qualitative interview study was conducted with 12 participants (7 women and 5 men; aged 25-46 years) who were on sick leave that had not exceeded six months due to stress-related exhaustion. The participants were recruited from public healthcare centres in the western part of Sweden, and the intention was to reach them early in their ongoing sick leave period. The interviews were performed face-to-face and analysed using a phenomenological hermeneutical approach.
RESULTS
The findings show that people affected by stress-related exhaustion struggle to maintain their dignity and define support in terms of allies who acknowledge their personhood and provide them helpful guidance. Participants expressed their needs to be taken seriously by professionals, family, and friends willing to engage in their situation. Lack of empathy and professional knowledge in the clinical encounter induced additional stress.
CONCLUSIONS
This study indicates that people affected by stress-related exhaustion need allies from their surrounding networks in their struggle to maintain their dignity. Our findings highlight that it is essential to acknowledge them as persons and establish an alliance to provide appropriate support based on each person's specific situation, needs and resources. This approach can be facilitated in a partnership, as emphasized in person-centred care (PCC). PCC emphasizes the co-creation of care in partnership between the patient (often with relatives) and health care professionals which may imply a more collaborative view of health care in which patients are engaged as active partners in planning their care.
Topics: Male; Humans; Female; Qualitative Research; Sick Leave; Delivery of Health Care; Health Personnel; Empathy
PubMed: 36350843
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277264 -
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal... Dec 2010The ecological factors responsible for the evolution of individual differences in animal personality (consistent individual differences in the same behaviour across time... (Review)
Review
The ecological factors responsible for the evolution of individual differences in animal personality (consistent individual differences in the same behaviour across time and contexts) are currently the subject of intense debate. A limited number of ecological factors have been investigated to date, with most attention focusing on the roles of resource competition and predation. We suggest here that parasitism may play a potentially important, but largely overlooked, role in the evolution of animal personalities. We identify two major routes by which parasites might influence the evolution of animal personality. First, because the risk of acquiring parasites can be influenced by an individual's behavioural type, local parasite regimes may impose selection on personality traits and behavioural syndromes (correlations between personality traits). Second, because parasite infections have consequences for aspects of host 'state', parasites might induce the evolution of individual differences in certain types of host behaviour in populations with endemic infections. Also, because infection often leads to specific changes in axes of personality, parasite infections have the potential to decouple behavioural syndromes. Host-parasite systems therefore provide researchers with valuable tools to study personality variation and behavioural syndromes from a proximate and ultimate perspective.
Topics: Animals; Behavior, Animal; Behavioral Research; Ecological and Environmental Phenomena; Evolution, Molecular; Feedback, Psychological; Host-Parasite Interactions; Models, Biological; Models, Genetic; Models, Psychological; Parasitic Diseases, Animal; Personality; Phenotype; Selection, Genetic
PubMed: 21078659
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0182 -
The Journals of Gerontology. Series B,... Feb 2022The current study examined within-person associations of self-reports of impaired current memory functioning and perceived decline with depressive symptoms in older...
OBJECTIVES
The current study examined within-person associations of self-reports of impaired current memory functioning and perceived decline with depressive symptoms in older adults without cognitive impairment, and whether these associations were moderated by individuals' levels of neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion.
METHODS
Samples were drawn from the Einstein Aging Study, Rush Memory and Aging Project (MAP), Minority Aging Research Study (MARS), Health and Retirement Study (HRS), and National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), with over 8,000 participants (65+ years) included across data sets. In a series of coordinated analyses, multilevel linear models tested within-person relationships over periods of up to 22 years.
RESULTS
Across HRS and NHATS samples, self-reports of impaired current memory functioning covaried with depressive symptoms over time. This association was moderated by neuroticism, such that the association was stronger for individuals with higher levels of neuroticism. Across all samples, perceived memory decline covaried with depressive symptoms over time. This association was moderated by neuroticism in MAP/MARS, HRS, and NHATS, such that the association was stronger for individuals with higher levels of neuroticism.
DISCUSSION
Self-reports of impaired current memory functioning and perceived memory decline are important determinants of older adults' psychological well-being. In our results, at times when older adults perceive poorer memory functioning or decline, they also tend to report more depressive symptoms. Further, results from two larger data sets suggest that individuals' level of neuroticism may determine the extent to which self-reports of memory impairment and depressive symptoms covary over time.
Topics: Aged; Biological Variation, Individual; Cognition; Conscience; Correlation of Data; Depression; Diagnostic Self Evaluation; Extraversion, Psychological; Female; Humans; Male; Memory Disorders; Neuroticism; Personality Assessment; Self Concept
PubMed: 33959767
DOI: 10.1093/geronb/gbab080 -
Revista de Neurologia Feb 2017Empathy is a sub-process of social cognition that is defined as the capacity to understand and share another person's thoughts, wishes and feelings, and is crucial in...
INTRODUCTION
Empathy is a sub-process of social cognition that is defined as the capacity to understand and share another person's thoughts, wishes and feelings, and is crucial in many forms of adaptive social interaction. It is a contextual, flexible and multidimensional phenomenon that is related with different neuronal networks and processes.
AIMS
To assess empathy in a sample of subjects diagnosed with conditions belonging to the category of severe mental disorders who were under treatment in a psychosocial rehabilitation programme.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS
The sample consisted of 22 persons with severe mental disorders receiving treatment consisting in a psychosocial rehabilitation programme, and 22 healthy controls. A battery of tests, including the empathy quotient, Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test and the interpersonal reactivity index, was administered to each subject.
RESULTS
In the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, the experimental group scored significantly lower than the control group (t = 2.8; p < 0.05). No statistically significant differences were found on the other variables.
CONCLUSIONS
Persons with a severe mental disorder do not display a generalised deficit of empathy. They do, however, have difficulty when it comes to recognising emotional states by looking, which suggests they process information about faces in a different way to subjects in the normal population.
Topics: Adult; Diagnostic Self Evaluation; Empathy; Eye; Facial Expression; Female; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Male; Mental Disorders; Middle Aged; Photography; Psychological Tests; Socioeconomic Factors
PubMed: 28169409
DOI: No ID Found -
Health & Social Care in the Community May 2020Social care funding is reducing in spite of a growing older population. Within this context, domiciliary services are increasingly failing to deliver care that respects...
Social care funding is reducing in spite of a growing older population. Within this context, domiciliary services are increasingly failing to deliver care that respects the individuality and heterogeneity of older people. To date, there has been limited research in the U.K. that explores, from the older person's perspective, how care practices interact with self. Using biographical-narrative methodology, this study takes a constructionist approach to understand the individual's lived experience of care and how it interacts with sense of self. A three-stage model of data collection was used, beginning with a narrative biographic enquiry, exploring with participants (65 yrs +, n = 17) their journeys into care and any possible relationship to personal identity. Stage 2 involved a two-week period of diary completion, with participants recording daily reflections on their care experiences. In stage 3, a semi-structured interview explored the diary entries, linking back to the narrative biographic enquiry to reveal ways in which specific care practices interacted with the sense of self. The findings reveal that a strong relationship between older person and formal carer, forged through familiarity, regularity and consistency, plays a significant role in promoting feelings of autonomy. Furthermore, such relationship mediates against the loss of executional autonomy that often accompanies increasing disability. Maintaining autonomy and control was a recurring theme, including in relation to home, privacy and dignity. Feelings of autonomy are also promoted when formal carers understand the unique ways in which individuals experience ageing and being in the cared-for relationship. This paper suggests that a care approach should be based on two tenets. First, a knowledge and insight into the importance of understanding and respecting the older person's continuing development of self, and second applying this knowledge to care through a positive, stable and consistent relationship between the older person and the carer.
Topics: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Aging; Caregivers; Female; Home Care Services; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Narration; Personal Autonomy; Respect; Self Concept; Social Support
PubMed: 31833154
DOI: 10.1111/hsc.12921