Current research in behavioral sciences最新文献

Narcissism is one of the oldest recognized personality traits in the history of psychological theory and research and has been suggested by some to be associated with purpose-in-life. The present study investigates the relationship between 15 subscales of narcissism and purpose-in-life based on self-report responses from 691 university students. Results revealed significant and positive correlations between purpose-in-life and seven of the narcissism scales. Significant negative correlations were between purpose-in-life with the subscales of shame and admiration. Nonsignificant correlations were found for six of the narcissism subscales and purpose-in-life. A direct-entry regression analysis demonstrated that approximately 38% of the variance in purpose-in-life was predicted by higher need for acclaim seeking and lower need for admiration narcissism scale scores. When the three-factor narcissism model was examined, purpose-in-life was significantly predicted positively by Agentic Extraversion and negatively by Narcissistic Neuroticism, accounting for 25% of the variance. The findings suggest that purpose-in-life may be a motive that delineates different dimensions of narcissism.

The Dark Tetrad is a group of four personality traits, namely Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, and sadism. Although these traits are conceptually distinct, they also share a number of common characteristics. Previous evidence has suggested that the Dark Tetrad traits could be associated with reduced empathy and difficulty recognising one's own emotions (i.e. alexithymia). The aim of this study was to further investigate the relationship between Dark Tetrad personality traits, alexithymia, and empathy in a large sample of the general population.

Data were collected via an anonymous online survey. A total of 1548 participants met the inclusion criteria and formed the final sample. Participants were asked to provide socio-demographic information and complete questionnaires assessing Dark Tetrad traits, empathy, and alexithymia.

Mediation analyses revealed that Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism had both a direct and an indirect effect on empathy, with alexithymia being a significant mediator in the relationship between these traits and empathy, even after controlling for age and gender. Conversely, narcissism was found to be significantly correlated only with alexithymia, but not with empathy.

Taken together, results show that people with Dark Tetrad traits may have alterations in their socio-emotional abilities, with difficulties in recognising and understanding their own feelings and those of others. Individual differences in the levels of alexithymia and empathy should be taken into account in the treatment of individuals with adverse personality traits in order to prevent socially dangerous behaviours.

In today's uncertain business setting, the intensity of rivalry amongst service firms requires a high level of quality and adaptability from service staff to fulfill increasing customer needs and wants. Indeed, every individual's ability to adjust to changing demands is vital for management to promote within their companies. The present study proposes and tests a novel self-regulatory adapting mechanism to examine the conditions within which service staff might activate their ambidextrous behavior which can be beneficial for their proactive service performance. Based on Trait Activation theory (TAT), Individual Adaptability Theory, and Job demands-resources theory, we analyze the direct and mediating effects of certain personal characteristics (Proactive Personality) and initiatives (Playful work design and Uncertainty adaptability) to activate the ambidextrous mode of employees toward higher proactive service performance. To test our hypotheses, we collected survey data from 368 frontline banking employees in all three regions of Vietnam. Practically, the results and recommendations from this study will assist in the hands-on management and motivation of service representatives toward better proactive performance.

Depression has profound personal, societal, and economic impacts. Leveraging advances in technology can help identify predictors of depression. In this study, we compared seven machine learning (ML) algorithms to identify depression predictors using publicly available datasets from standard health surveys. We obtained data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2017–2020, including medical, mental, demographic, and lifestyle information from 8965 individuals aged 18 to 80 years. Our study identified strongly correlated features of depression and demonstrated that ML algorithms can accurately identify depression predictors. The performance of the algorithms was evaluated using standard metrics. Among the algorithms tested, the Neural Network algorithm showed the highest overall performance, with an area under the curve of 91.34 %, which significantly outperformed results obtained with traditional statistical methods such as logistic regression and nomograms. This study demonstrates how ML can mine standard health surveys and identify depression predictors in a more accurate and nuanced fashion than other approaches. The findings of this study further suggest that incorporating heterogeneous data can enhance the performance of ML algorithms. These algorithms can be a valuable complementary tool for clinicians, particularly in remote settings, facilitating data analysis, and accelerating knowledge discovery in mental health studies.

Objective

A randomized controlled trial was conducted to determine the unique role of the arts as a proactive mental health strategy for college students in Generation Z. Using a web-based approach, mindfulness-based art therapy, mindfulness only, and arts only are compared to a non-intervention control group to determine if arts-related interventions activate unique and distinguishable mechanisms of change.

Participants

A sample of 109 college students were enrolled.

Methods

Participants were randomized into a mindfulness-based art therapy, neutral clay task, mindfulness only, or a control condition for the 5-week intervention. Standardized measures of anxiety, somatic symptoms, mindfulness, stress, depression, and sleep, as well as biological saliva markers were obtained.

Results

A main effect of time (pre- versus post-intervention) was found for all three interventions on perceived stress, depression and sleep, but not anxiety, somatic symptoms, or mindfulness. Analyses of difference scores across the study period demonstrated significant differences of all intervention groups from the control group in perceived stress. Additionally, the degree of change for MBAT and NCT groups significantly differed from the control group on depression. Lastly, MBAT and NCT groups had significantly different degrees of change in sleep.

Conclusion

The results suggest promise for online interventions as a proactive mental health strategy for reducing stress, depression and improving sleep quality.

Previous work showed that the willingness to help is impacted by the perception of the cost for the donor and the benefit for the recipient. Here we set up to extend this literature by investigating the role played by social value orientation (SVO), attention, and age (early adolescents vs. middle-late adolescents vs. young adults). Results showed that these three variables have a significant impact on the perception of the cost and the benefit of a donation. Exploratory analyses showed that perception of the cost is predicted by a three-way interaction between SVO, attention, and age (but the same three-way interaction does not predict the perception of the benefit). Finally, we found that the way the perceived cost and the perceived benefit impact the willingness to help is different for early adolescents compared to the other two groups. Early adolescents’ decisions are less impacted by perceived cost (and more impacted by perceived benefit).

The COVID-19 outbreak brought many challenges for everyday life that could affect mental health. The present study investigated cohort trends of sense of control, anxiety symptoms and (addictive) social media use (SMU) in German university freshmen between 2019 (before the pandemic outbreak) and 2021 (after the pandemic outbreak). Data of overall 1,378 freshmen (three cohorts: 2019: N = 407, 2020: N = 563, 2021: N = 408) were collected by online surveys. The comparison of the three cohorts revealed a significant decrease of sense of control from 2019 to 2021 (effect size: Cohen's d = 0.29 to 0.36). In contrast, anxiety symptoms (d = 0.25 to 0.28), time spent daily on SMU (d = 0.18 to 0.36), and addictive SMU (d = 0.26 to 0.31) increased. In all cohorts, we found the same result patterns. Anxiety symptoms and the SMU variables were significantly positively correlated (r = 0.171 to 0.469, p < .001). Sense of control was significantly negatively correlated with the other assessed variables (r = -0.112 to -0.279, p < .05 and p < .001). Moreover, anxiety symptoms mediated the relationship between sense of control and addictive SMU. Thus, the COVID-19 outbreak and its consequences for daily life could affect the sense of control, anxiety symptoms and addictive SMU of freshmen in Germany. Potential ways how to protect young people against these potential negative effects are discussed.

Human gambling almost always results in a loss. Thus, it is generally assumed that humans gamble for enjoyment and the enticement of winning. Although animals are purported to engage in optimal foraging behavior and should be sensitive to the probability of reinforcement, similar suboptimal behavior can be found in pigeons and other animals. They show a preference for an alternative that is associated with a signal for a low probability of a large reward (e.g., 20% probability of 10 pellets – a mean of 2 pellets) over an alternative that is associated with a signal for a high probability of a smaller reward (100% probability of 3 pellets). This effect may result from the strong conditioned reinforcement associated with a stimulus that is always followed by a reinforcer, but surprisingly, little conditioned inhibition associated with the signal for the absence of a reinforcer. A similar mechanism appears to be responsible for human gambling (gamblers tend to overvalue wins and undervalue losses). We have also found that for pigeons (and perhaps humans as well), the probability of the conditioned reinforcer is relatively unimportant, it is primarily the value of the reinforcer when it does occur (e.g., 10 pellets vs. 3 pellets) that is important. Interestingly, pigeons show several other parallels to human gambling behavior. For example, hungrier pigeons show a greater tendency to choose suboptimally. Also, pigeons that have had enrichment in the form of social experience in a larger cage show a reduced tendency to choose suboptimally. This animal model may provide a useful analog to human gambling behavior, one that is free from the influence of human culture, language, social reinforcement, and other experiential biases that may encourage human gambling.