On the relationship between valence and arousal in samples across the globe.

Affect is involved in many psychological phenomena, but a descriptive structure, long sought, has been elusive. Valence and arousal are fundamental, and a key question-the focus of the present study-is the relationship between them. Valence is sometimes thought to be independent of arousal, but, in some studies (representing too few societies in the world) arousal was found to vary with valence. One common finding is that arousal is lowest at neutral valence and increases with both positive and negative valence: a symmetric V-shaped relationship. In the study reported here of self-reported affect during a remembered moment (N = 8,590), we tested the valence-arousal relationship in 33 societies with 25 different languages. The two most common hypotheses in the literature-independence and a symmetric V-shaped relationship-were not supported. With data of all samples pooled, arousal increased with positive but not negative valence. Valence accounted for between 5% (Finland) and 43% (China Beijing) of the variance in arousal. Although there is evidence for a structural relationship between the two, there is also a large amount of variability in this relation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Correction: Healthy lifestyle behaviors are major predictors of mental wellbeing during COVID-19 pandemic confinement: A study on adult Arabs in higher educational institutions.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243524.].

Healthy lifestyle behaviors are major predictors of mental wellbeing during COVID-19 pandemic confinement: A study on adult Arabs in higher educational institutions.

BACKGROUND: In the past infectious diseases affected the quality of lifestyle during home confinement. The study conducted examines the influence of home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak on lifestyle, mental wellbeing, nutritional status, and sleeping pattern. METHOD: An online multicategorical questionnaire was distributed to collect demographic information combined with the following tools: Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ), International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), WHO-5 wellbeing score, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). A snowball non-discriminate sampling procedure was conducted to collect data from people attending or working at higher institutions from March 1, 2020 to April 24, 2020. A total of 1723 completed responses (917 males, 37.4 ±13.4 years old and 806 females 32.2 ± 11.5 years old) were collected. RESULTS: The female participants had significantly lower mental health scores than males (53.9% vs. 46.1%). The mental wellbeing scores were higher among participants with medium and high physical activity (PA) levels (p < 0.00). Additionally, the mental wellbeing scores were significantly improved by dietary quality and it's sleeping score (p < 0.001). However, PA was by far the major determinant of the mental health scores. CONCLUSION: Factors such as PA, diet, and sleeping patterns were associated with mental wellbeing during the COVID-19 confinement among Arab participants.

Psychometric properties of the Arabic self-report version of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire.

Students in middle school tend to display emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBDs) compared to other forms of psychopathology. Early identification of EBDs is therefore a priority in order to prevent the chronic co-morbidity with other forms of psychopathology which may affect students' academic achievement. Assessment of EBDs has been traditionally undertaken via proxy reporting; but psychometrically rigorous instruments are needed so that children and adolescents can report on their own emotions and behaviours. Such need increases in the Omani context given the lack of EBDs adequate assessment instruments. In the current study the factor structure of the Arabic self-report version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (A-SDQ) was examined in a sample of 815 middle school students (mean age=14 years). The study tested the SDQ original five-factor model which received considerable empirical support. Responses on the A-SDQ were compared to responses obtained via proxy reports from teachers and parents through confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs). Results showed a reasonable fit for the three informant forms. Nevertheless, there were differences in item loadings across the three informant forms. Additionally, participants' self-report responses were tested for invariance across gender. CFAs provided support to the invariance hypothesis for item loadings, indicating that the items were similarly valid indices of the five factors for males and females. Factor correlations, factor variances and item residuals were not invariant across gender. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: This paper, to our knowledge, is the first research paper that provides empirical evidence on the Arabic self report version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (A-SDQ) within a school-based sample. Though the focus was on the self-report version we collected data from the proxy versions for parents and teachers to provide additional evidence on the construct validity of the (A-SDQ) through cross informant data.