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Among many problems which should be provided with health promotion one of the most important is a cervical cancer (WHO, 2009). In Poland are being run many social campaigns but none of them is directed toward highschool youths. An unique project of social campaign aimed at youths was created in close collaboration of University of Silesia with Medical University of Silesia. The campaign is being run since September 2009. The project is divided into two stages. Firstly, we diagnosed level of awareness and attitudes toward cancer among high school youths (622 respondents). Secondly, basing on the knowledge from the first stage we created an interactive workshop. Students who are participating in workshops are filling in two questionnaires diagnosing change of their attitudes towards health (in the process). The analyse of scientific material from the first stage shows that most of respondents have not visited gynaecologist so far. 39,5% students are unrealistic optimists as far as their own potential illness is considered. There are serious lacks in knowledge about cervical cancer, moreover, the lowest level of health awareness is observed among girls who are sexually active (23% of respondents).
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The aim of this article is to compare two partly overlapping personality variables — Machiavellianism and subclinical psychopathy. Individuals with these traits share tendency to be callous, selfish and manipulative. Some researchers argued that, in nonclinical samples, these two variables are equivalent. The author presents a review of the theories and studies confirming discriminant validity of the Machiavellianism construct.
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The aim of the study was to analyze the relationship between psychological variables (personality traits, personal resources, self-rated health) and psychological well-being (life satisfaction, positive and negative emotions) in those over retirement age. The results show significant correlations between most personality traits, personal resources and psychological well-being. No significant dependences have been found between openness to experiences and life satisfaction. The relationship between self-rated health and psychological well-being seem to be curvilinear. The regression analysis for life satisfaction has displayed three predicators that explain altogether 25% of the results’ variance: the sense of comprehensibility (R2 = 0,18), self-esteem and self-efficacy. Positive emotions are predicted by four predicators that are responsible for 34% of the total variance — the sense of meaningfulness (R2 = 0,25), extraversion, self-efficacy and neuroticism. The greatest role in predicting negative emotions (altogether 58% of the results’ variance) is played by neuroticism (R2 = 0,46). Other variables that are marked as significant ones in the regression analysis (the sense of manageability, intensity of self-esteem and extraversion) play a less important role.
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The lack of homogeneity of the ambulatory patients group may have specific interdependencies of psychosocial variables. Therefore, studies have been undertaken to determine the level of intensity of some of them and to reveal the correlation between them. The study has focused on: acceptance of the disease, the level of distress, the disease‑related physical and emotional state (both positive and negative). Methods: an Acceptance of Illness Scale, by B.J Felton, T.A. Revenson and G.A. Hinrichsen (in Polish version by Z. Juczyński), Distress Thermometer developed by the American Cancer Society in the Polish adaptation of J. Życińska, E. Wojtyna, A. Heyda and A. Syska‑Bielak, Form for Determinants of Patient Vital and a questionnaire to collect socio‑demographic data, both designed for the study reported. The research group consisted of 94 patients. Their average age was 50, while the average duration of morbidity was 10 years. Results: the level of distress exceeded the cut‑off point (4), and it is correlated with negative emotions. The acceptance of the illness is negatively correlated with negative emotions and physical symptoms associated with the illness. In addition, the average level of distress varies significantly in patients with low, medium and high levels of negative emotions and significantly differs in patients with middle and high levels of acceptance of the disease.
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The aim of the study was to explore the impact of a short group rational behavioral therapy (RBT) on a quality of life among cancer patients. The study involved 217 people with cancer. 137 people formed the experimental group, which took part in the seven days, group psychotherapeutic classes, based on RBT. The control group consisted of 80 patients waiting for a therapy. The study was longitudinal and consisted of pre-and posttest (8 weeks after the end of the therapeutic influence). The quality of life was estimated by the Polish version of the SF-36v2. It was observed, that in the experimental group the quality of life increased in all areas of a health related quality of life, except for a physical functioning. These changes, with the exception of modifications in a role emotional scale, were bound up with RBT. In the control group the quality of life improved in the scales: a social functioning, a mental health and a bodily pain. However, the observed changes were higher in the experimental group. In both groups there was no deterioration in the quality of life in any of the investigated scales. In summary, the short group RBT can be a valuable complement to standard cancer therapy, particularly for people who seek help and have higher motivation to work.
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Following the autodetermination theory research, we can conclude that social environment may lower people’s well-being by enhancing the pursuit for extrinsic goals, inconsistent with human nature. Socioeconomic situation of the family, parental style of the mother, lack of communication in the family, divorce or lack of the father are indicated as sources of children’s materialism. The aim of the paper is to answer the following questions: Are parental values linked with children’s materialistic tendencies? If yes, how are they linked? Children and their patents were surveyed (study 1 — children age and parents, M = 10,5, study 2 — children age M = 4,85 and mothers). Children were asked about their associations with a happy person and about their materialistic aspirations. Parents filled the following value scales: Rokeach Value Survey (study 1) and Schwartz Portret Values Questionnaire (study 2). The results show that mothers of materialistic children valued ‘happiness’ (study 1) and ‘power’ (study 2) more than mothers of non-materialistic children, whereas they valued ‘mature love’ (study 1) and ‘tradition’ (study 2) less than mothers of non-materialistic children. There were no differences between fathers of materialistic and non-materialistic children (study 1). However, in the group of materialistic children the values of their mothers and fathers differed. The fathers valued ‘mature love’ and ‘pleasure’ higher than the mothers whereas they valued ‘happiness’ lower than the mothers. The results imply that values of mothers pursuing extrinsic goals may be linked with materialistic tendencies of their children.
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The obtained results reveal some significant relationships among the measured features. The aim of this present paper is to study how personality traits from the Five-Factor Model, type A behavior and type D personality correlate with the categories of subjective health: positive thinking, mental condition, physical activity, sensitivity to others and efficiency of action. First, neuroticism was negatively related to all measures of subjective health, whereas extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience were positively related to subjective health but the relations were not so strong. Second, the study indicates that subjective health is considerably improved by activity and actions but deteriorated by vulnerability, self-consciousness and anxiety. These findings are in line with the results concerning the relationships between subjective health and type A behaviour (positive relation) and type D personality (negative relation). The correlations between agreeableness and subjective health in the study are not so clear. It may result from the fact that some constituents of this trait correlate positively and some negatively with subjective health. Additionally, deteriorated subjective health correlate with both high and low intensity of this trait and this may be another possible explanation of the above-mentioned inconsistency.
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This article presents empirical research on quality of life, success and psychical mercantilism among entrepreneurs, employees of state and private companies (2010). Among the many psychological theories have been selected concepts that stress multidimensionality: personalistic‑existential concept of quality of life of Maria Straś‑Romanowska, the concept of success of Dominika Dej, Ute Stephan, Marian Gorgievsky and the mental concept of mercantilism by Małgorzata Górnik‑Durose. The results indicate significant differences in the level of quality of life, psychological mercantilism and success among the professionally active people and the existence of weak or moderate correlation between the quality of life, success and psychological mercantilism.
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The paper analyses the development of knowledge in children and the problems children face in the process of constructing this knowledge. The results of the empirical studies, carried out on Estonian preschool and school children are described and the reasons for difficulties analysed. Knowledge about the world is mediated by senses and by various mental and material tools. Infants rely on perceptual information, but, additionally, certain perceptual and conceptual structures (beliefs) help them to interpret and integrate pieces of this information. When children grow older, their learning about the world will be increasingly based on language. Children synthesise information from different sources and form their own interpretations and models. Vosniadou and her colleagues have studied astronomical concepts among children of different age and cultures using interviews and drawings. They have shown that children first construct initial models (e.g. flat disc or quadrangle model of the earth) and afterwards synthetic models (dual, flattened and hollow earth models). Similar models have been found while studying Estonian children (e.g. in their drawings). However, in studies carried out in Estonia, these integrated models were found in the minority of children. The articles present examples which illustrate children's difficulties in understanding the earth as a planet. It is even more difficult for children and adults to understand the reasons for seasonal changes. Several factors influence the changes of temperature: these are taught at school as separate subjects; also, diagrams, which interpretation is not taught to students, also inhibit understanding. A wide-spread explanation behind seasonal changes is `the distance theory', which states that the temperature in summer and winter differs because the distance between the earth and the sun is different during these seasons. The schoolchildren's difficulties in explaining the reasons for seasonal changes are illustrated with examples from interviews and discussions.
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Recently there has been an increase in the impact of modern stress and coping theories from a cognitive point of view on the research in the field of families having children with disabilities. These theories, also, have an impact on the studies regarding reactions of different family members to having a disabled family member and the research focusing on their adaptation to this circumstance. Our study is based on the cognitive adaptation theory of Taylor and on the Double ABCX Model of McCubbin and Patterson that was introduced to describe post crisis adaptation of family members to child disability. Applying Kansas Inventory of Parental Perceptions to 185 parents, 92 parents with children with disabilities and 93 parents with children without disabilities, we have undertaken a comparative analysis of parents' perceptions on their children as sources of positive contributions. In the case of parents of disabled children in particular, we studied their perception on the situation of having a disabled child. We were motivated by our wish to make a step toward understanding the perceptions' role in cognitive adaptation to child disability.
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Oral language represents the most important instrument of communication of thoughts thus language is vital for the adaptation to the norms of any society. The main objective of this research is to determine the importance of different factors, environmental and individual in the determination of age differences (4 to 6 years) in the expressive language ability. The instruments used in this study are: Preschool Language Assessment Instrument, PLAI, 2nd edition, a test for determining work memory (adapted after Hughes, 1998), a vocabulary scale (Raven, 1988) and a demographic questionnaire that contains references to the educational level of the parents, number of siblings and the birth order of the evaluated child and respectively the whole income of the family. Results obtained on 80 participants show that individual variables (vocabulary and work memory) explain 53% of oral language variance and from the socio-demographic variables only the educational level of the mother is significant, this explaining 5,4%. An important factor is the fact that in either of the tested ierarhic regression models the individual variables and the socio-demographic ones did not reduce to insignificant the contribution of age which suggests the necessity to respect the initial model, thus increasing its predictive value.
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Didactic activities require competencies that imply the assimilation of psycho pedagogical and domain specific knowledge as well as a large repertoire of practical activities. The practical component of the process of acquiring competences for didactic activities has double meaning: on the one hand, it is the context in which the student is offered the models of didactic action, the framework in which he can practice and is able to form action logarithms; on the other hand it constitutes the primary mean for the process of internalization of those elements that will serve as the basis for his professional identity, these occurring only trough systematic, coherent and consistent identification with professional models. Professional authority is a personality characteristic of the educator which is formed in close relationship with the acquisition of professional identity.
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In this study we studied the relationship between interpersonal perception and sociometric status, in the classroom environment. Interpersonal perception of intelligence, sociability and empathy was taken into account. Participants were members of four classrooms (N=118), with an average age of 15.5 years. The analysis of the relationship between interpersonal perception and sociometric status yielded significant results in the way classmates of different status were perceived. The strongest differences were identified between the popular and rejected status categories, with the controversial members being perceived in a similar manner as the rejected ones, suggesting that a predictive model of sociometric status could be constructed based on the interpersonal perception factors.
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The Organismic Integration Theory describes the internalization process of extrinsic motivation. Unlike the intinsic-extrinsic dichotomy, it acknowledges the existence of several forms of motivations, with different degree of self-determination. We used a sample of 141 students for the factorial validation of The Academic Self-Regulation Questionnaire. The exploratory factorial analysis with varimax rotation shows four factors, explaining 50,54% of the variance: external regulation, amotivation, intrinsic motivation, and identified regulation. The results are consistent with The Self-Determination Theory. The stability coefficients are high, but the internal consistency coefficients are relatively small for Amotivation and Extrinsic Regulation. Nevertheless, we believe that the instrument is efficient for the assessment of motivational regulation in the academic environment.
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The paper proposes an incursion in the condition of the contemporary teenager, in order to reveal some of the jeopardise he is confronted with, in the frame of the axiological disturbances of the contemporary world, but also due to his structural age specific fragility. The harmful effects, which are generated by the TV and especially by computer addiction are analysed. The psycho-behavioural profile of the EMO teenager is underlined. As a result some guiding marks are sketched, in order to prevent the phenomenon, or to recover the EMO teenager.
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