Parenting an Adolescent: The Case of the Avoidant Highly Sensitive Mother.

This research examines parental practices of Israeli highly sensitive mothers toward their adolescent children and the role of attachment avoidance as a moderator between the associations of high sensitivity and parenting practices. One hundred and one mother-adolescent dyads completed self-report questionnaires assessing mothers' degree of high sensitivity, mothers' adult attachment, and mothers' parenting practices. Results showed that highly sensitive mothers were described by their adolescent children as inconsistent and intrusive parents. Further, attachment avoidance was found to moderate the association between mothers' high sensitivity and inconsistent and psychological intrusiveness. Findings suggest that attachment avoidant highly sensitive mothers experience this period of raising adolescents as especially stressful and challenging, which contributes to the practice of negative parenting. Thus, interventions focused on regulating those mothers' emotions to better cope with parental challenges could buffer negative parenting practices.

Birthing consciousness and the flow experience during physiological childbirth.

PROBLEM: It has been demonstrated that birth without medical intervention conveys significant physical and psychological benefits to the mother and her newborn baby. However, there is a need to include women's subjective experience of physiological birth to understand and promote it. BACKGROUND: The theoretical concept of "birthing consciousness" hypothesizes that women during natural childbirth sometimes experience a specific altered state of consciousness, which is a positive peak experience that resembles "flow" in many aspects. AIM: To investigate the underexplored connection between the physiological mode of childbirth and altered states of consciousness during childbirth. METHODS: Israeli women with childbirth experience were recruited through social media (Facebook groups with a focus on childbirth and motherhood). Participants (n = 766) completed an online survey: the Flow State Scale (FSS) and a demographic questionnaire. FINDINGS: Differences were found between modes of birth as to flow state, as women who experienced physiological childbirth (i.e., with no epidural anesthesia or instrumental interventions) had a higher flow state during birth. DISCUSSION: This link empirically confirms the phenomenon of birthing consciousness. All nine dimensions of the mental state of flow apply to childbirth: challenge-skill balance, action-awareness merging, clear goals, unambiguous feedback, concentration on the task, sense of control, loss of self-consciousness, transformation of time, and autotelic experience. CONCLUSION: Understanding a women's subjective experience during physiological birth can enhance clinical understanding of physiological birth thus promoting positive physiological birth experiences - which has crucial health benefits. We propose that more studies need to be done to promote experiencing flow during physiological birth.

The Interaction between Personal Values and Perception of Organizational Politics in Predicting Stress Levels of Staff Members in Academic Institutions.

Educational systems throughout the world have been impacted by neoliberal ideology and practices transforming higher-education institutions. As a result, changes relating to the academic environment have become more complex. The well-being of academic staff is deteriorating as a result of overwhelming busy work or continual redirection culminating in high levels of stress in academic settings. Given that the perceptions of organizational politics have been shown a significant relevance to employees' attitudes in public and private sectors, the study aims to examine whether perceptions of organizational politics predict stress levels among faculty members in an academic environment. Moreover, the study examines the importance of personal values underlying the inclination toward stress in academic staff members. The study focuses on the extent to which personal values (self-enhancement and openness to change) moderate the relationships between the perception of organizational politics and stress level. The sample includes 376 academic staff from higher-education institutions. The study highlights the importance of personal values by showing that the extent of politics' negative consequences on stress levels depends on the employee's personal values. Findings suggested that a staff member's values seem to be significant in modifying the way in which he/she experiences the academic environment.

Prediction and job-related outcomes of procrastination in the workplace.

In the current study, we examined whether the impact of the Big Five on procrastination in an organizational context is similar to that in academic settings, and examined the role of dis-regulation of anxiety as a potential moderator of these relationships. One hundred and seven Israeli employees participated in the study. The results showed that agreeableness and conscientiousness were negatively associated with procrastination, while neuroticism was positively associated with procrastination in the workplace. Moreover, the findings supported the hypothesis that dis-regulation of anxiety moderates the relationships between personality traits and workplace procrastination. These findings suggest that the link between personality traits and workplace procrastination is not stable, is affected by different contexts, and interacts with other personality characteristics (specifically, dis-regulation of anxiety).

Environmental Behavior Among Russian Youth: The Role of Self-direction and Environmental Concern.

Previous research that has tried to identify the personal values that best explain variance in pro-environmental attitudes tended to focus on biospheric and universalism values. This paper examines the importance of self-direction as a value underlying young people's inclination to adopt pro-environmental behaviors and environmental activism. We expect that individuals who emphasize a self-direction value, which fosters creativity, motivates innovation, and promotes coping with challenges, are likely to respond in more self-directed and autonomous ways to emerging environmental practices. We analyze a sample of 600 university students surveyed in Moscow and find that biospheric and self-direction values are associated with environmental behavior and activism. Beyond the direct effect of self-direction value on pro-environmental behaviors and environmental activism we also observe a moderation effect of self-direction on the association between concern and environmental behavior. We discuss the implications of our findings for encouraging environmental action in specific contexts, similar to the one depicted in our sample.