Psychological well-being in Europe after the outbreak of war in Ukraine.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has had devastating effects on the Ukrainian population and the global economy, environment, and political order. However, little is known about the psychological states surrounding the outbreak of war, particularly the mental well-being of individuals outside Ukraine. Here, we present a longitudinal experience-sampling study of a convenience sample from 17 European countries (total participants = 1,341, total assessments = 44,894, countries with >100 participants = 5) that allows us to track well-being levels across countries during the weeks surrounding the outbreak of war. Our data show a significant decline in well-being on the day of the Russian invasion. Recovery over the following weeks was associated with an individual's personality but was not statistically significantly associated with their age, gender, subjective social status, and political orientation. In general, well-being was lower on days when the war was more salient on social media. Our results demonstrate the need to consider the psychological implications of the Russo-Ukrainian war next to its humanitarian, economic, and ecological consequences.

When Future Leads to a Moral Present: Future Self-Relatedness Predicts Moral Judgments and Behavior in Everyday Life.

Future self-perceptions seem to promote far-sighted decisions in intertemporal choices. Previous work suggested that future self-relatedness, the extent to which we feel similar and connected to our future self, is associated with moral concerns. We aimed to extend these findings to everyday moral judgments and behavior using experience sampling methods. In addition, we assessed how moral foundation concerns mediate the relationship between future self-relatedness and moral behavior. Participants (N = 151) reported their state-levels of future self-relatedness, individualizing, and binding moral foundations and answered whether they performed a moral action five times a day for seven days. Within- and between-participants future self-relatedness predicted daily fluctuations in individualizing and binding moral foundations concerns. On the behavioral level, only within-participants future self-relatedness predicted individualizing moral actions with individualizing moral foundations mediating this effect. Our findings suggest that within- and between-person changes in future self-relatedness might be used to predict everyday moral concerns and behavior.

Construct and criterion validity of the HEXACO Medium School Inventory Extended (MSI-E).

In this cross-sectional study we aimed at: 1) validating the observer (Obs) version of HEXACO Medium School Inventory Extended (MSI-E); 2) establishing convergent and divergent construct validity of the HEXACO-MSI-E; 3) establishing criterion validity of HEXACO-MSI-E. We administered the HEXACO-MSI-E, the Big Five Questionnaire-Children (BFQ-C), the Internalizing and Externalizing scales of Youth Self Report (YSR), some items of the 2019 Middle School Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRB) and some items about adolescents' values, beliefs, behaviors, and desired features of a possible future job to 1175 adolescents (Mage = 12.03, SD = 0.89) and the observer version of these measures (except for BFQ-C) to 854 parents or legal guardians. The factorial structure and the reliability of the Observer Report of HEXACO-MSI-E were confirmed. Convergent and divergent validity were successfully established with a version of the inventory filled out by parents. Convergent and divergent validity were also established with BFQ-C notwithstanding some only apparent anomalies. Criterion validity was established with respect to four specific groups of criteria collected in both self-report and observer form. HEXACO-MSI-E traits were more predictive with respect to self-report than to observer criteria and the majority were common. Together with the positive results of this study, implications and issues for future studies are discussed.

Agency influences vicarious approach/avoidance effects.

Social learning plays a prominent role in shaping individual preferences. The vicarious approach-avoidance effect consists of developing a preference for attitudinal objects that have been approached over objects that have been avoided by another person (model). In two experiments (N = 448 participants), we explored how the vicarious approach-avoidance effect is affected by agency (model's voluntary choice) and identification with the model. The results consistently revealed vicarious approach-avoidance effects in preference, as indicated by the semantic differential and the Implicit Association Test. Agency increased the size of the preference assessed through the semantic differential but did not significantly impact preference in the Implicit Association Test. Identification with the model had no significant impact on the vicarious approach-avoidance effect. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

"Me" means more than "good": stimuli's self-relevance matters more than valence in shaping evaluative learning via the self.

ABSTRACTStimuli that relate to the self tend to be better liked. The Self-Referencing (SR) task is a paradigm whereby one target categorised through the same action as self-stimuli (i.e. possessive pronouns) is preferred over an alternative target categorised through the same action as other-stimuli. Past studies on the SR showed that valence could not fully account for the observed effect. Here we explored self-relevance as a possible explanation. Across four studies (N = 567), participants selected self-relevant and self-irrelevant adjectives to be used as source stimuli in a Personal-SR task. In that task, the two classes of stimuli were paired with two fictitious brands. We measured automatic (IAT) and self-reported preferences, and identification with the brands. Experiment 1 showed that the brand paired with positive self-relevant adjectives became more positive than the one paired with positive self-irrelevant adjectives. Experiment 2 confirmed this pattern with negative adjectives, and Experiment 3 ruled out the effect of a self-serving bias in the adjectives selection. Experiment 4 showed that the brand related to negative self-relevant adjectives was preferred over the brand related to positive self-irrelevant adjectives. We discussed the implications of our results and the potential mechanisms that might explain self-driven preferences.

The HEXACO Adjective Scales and Its Psychometric Properties.

The HEXACO model divides the space of personality into six main dimensions: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness (vs. anger), Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. Despite the lexical foundation, no validated adjective-based instruments are available yet. This contribution describes the newly developed HEXACO Adjective Scales (HAS), a 60 adjectives instrument to measure the six main personality dimensions. Study 1 (N=368) proceeds to the first pruning of a large set of adjectives to identify potential markers. Study 2 (N=811) delineates the final list of 60 adjectives and provides benchmarks for the new scales' internal consistency, convergent/discriminant, and criterion validity. Study 3 (N=411) confirms the HAS factorial structure, internal consistency, and criterion validity. The study also provides evidence of temporal stability (test-retest reliability) and convergence between raters (peer/self-evaluation). The HAS shows excellent psychometric properties and constitutes a valuable tool for assessing the HEXACO personality dimensions using adjectives.

Development and validation of an instrument to measure personality in adolescence: The HEXACO Medium School Inventory Extended (MSI-E).

In this paper, we aimed at developing and validating a novel instrument to evaluate personality in 10-14 years old adolescents with six basic traits, with two dedicated studies. In Study 1, we generated a large pool of items (384 items) from three basic items sources, which we administered to 714 Italian adolescents. Using principal component analysis (PCA) and extension factor analysis, we selected the best eight items for each facet, and so the best 32 items for each factor, except for the Unconventionality facet of Openness to Experience (O) for which we selected the best six items. This resulted in a total of 190 items. The 190-item HEXACO-MSI had very good levels of dimensional validity and reliability, but it fell short in containing 8 items for each facet (i.e., for Unconventionality) and in balancing normal and reversed items within each facet. Therefore, in a second study we added items to the scale and verified again the dimensionality and reliability with the goal of developing a final version of the scale. In Study 2, we administered a version of the HEXACO-MSI consisting of 219 items to 1175 Italian adolescents. Using principal component analysis (PCA), we selected the best eight items for each facet equally balanced between normal and reversed items within each facet and factor. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed the six-factor structure and its invariance. The results showed that the HEXACO-MSI-E had a clear six-factor structure in adolescents, that was invariant across gender and across the three middle school classes, and was reliable. Finally, we established temporal stability of each factor in two measurements after one year. Together with the positive results of this contribution, we discussed some aspects for future studies.

We like it 'cause you take it: vicarious effects of approach/avoidance behaviours on observers.

We present five studies investigating the effects of approach and avoidance behaviours when individuals do not enact them but, instead, learn that others have performed them. In Experiment 1, when participants read that a fictitious character (model) had approached a previously unknown product, they ascribed to this model a liking for the object. In contrast, they ascribed to the model a disliking for the avoided product. In Experiment 2, this result emerged, with a smaller effect size, even when it was clear that the behaviours followed specific instructions from a third party. The model had been a mere executor instead of behaving autonomously. Finally, in Experiments 3, 4, and 5, we showed, with direct and indirect measures of attitudes, that reading that the model had approached vs avoided products was sufficient to create preferences in the participant for the approached one, regardless of whether it was explained that the model was a mere executor. This research highlights the largely unexplored effects of vicarious approach/avoidance behaviours. Theoretical and practical implications and possible developments of this line of research are discussed.

Why are you (un)conscientious? The dynamic interplay of goals, states, and traits in everyday life.

OBJECTIVE: Personality involves both trait and state components, personal goals serving a crucial regulatory function for the expression of personality states. The present study investigates the dynamic interplay between conscientiousness-related goals, conscientious personality states, and trait conscientiousness. METHOD: A sample of 244 community participants responded to a baseline survey (T1), a 5-times-a-day Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) for 15 days, and a post-EMA survey (T2). RESULTS: Pre-registered multilevel analyses indicated significant contemporaneous positive and negative associations between momentary conscientious and unconscientious goals and state conscientiousness, respectively. Cross-lagged associations also emerged, with goals predicting future states of conscientiousness. A latent growth model was fitted on a subsample of participants (N = 159). Results indicated that change in trait conscientiousness from T1 to T2 was explained by growth in conscientiousness-related goals during the EMA phase, with a mediating effect of growth in state conscientiousness. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the results corroborate the importance of goals for modeling contemporaneous and cross-lagged personality dynamics, both in short and longer timeframes.

Deciding what to replicate: A decision model for replication study selection under resource and knowledge constraints.

Robust scientific knowledge is contingent upon replication of original findings. However, replicating researchers are constrained by resources, and will almost always have to choose one replication effort to focus on from a set of potential candidates. To select a candidate efficiently in these cases, we need methods for deciding which out of all candidates considered would be the most useful to replicate, given some overall goal researchers wish to achieve. In this article we assume that the overall goal researchers wish to achieve is to maximize the utility gained by conducting the replication study. We then propose a general rule for study selection in replication research based on the replication value of the set of claims considered for replication. The replication value of a claim is defined as the maximum expected utility we could gain by conducting a replication of the claim, and is a function of (a) the value of being certain about the claim, and (b) uncertainty about the claim based on current evidence. We formalize this definition in terms of a causal decision model, utilizing concepts from decision theory and causal graph modeling. We discuss the validity of using replication value as a measure of expected utility gain, and we suggest approaches for deriving quantitative estimates of replication value. Our goal in this article is not to define concrete guidelines for study selection, but to provide the necessary theoretical foundations on which such concrete guidelines could be built. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Personality in a naturally occurring strong situation: Unique effects of HEXACO traits on COVID-19 mitigation.

The first Italian lockdown during COVID-19 pandemic constituted an example of strong situation. Under this context, we investigated associations of HEXACO personality with COVID-19 mitigation behaviors (self-reported hygiene, distancing, going out). We tested unique associations through regularized regressions and out-of-sample prediction after establishing the best level of analysis (HEXACO traits, facets, items). Personality always explained out-of-sample variance over and above demographics, COVID-related knowledge, concern, impacts, and goals. Hygiene and distancing were best predicted by HEXACO traits, whereas facets constituted the best level for the prediction of going out. In general, honesty-humility (trait or facets) was the clearest predictor of safer behaviors. Results corroborate the relevance of personality even in strong situations, as well as its importance for COVID-19 mitigation.

Organic food labels bias food healthiness perceptions: Estimating healthiness equivalence using a Discrete Choice Experiment.

Individuals perceive organic food as being healthier and containing fewer calories than conventional foods. We provide an alternative way to investigate this organic halo effect using a mirrored method to Choice Experiments applied to healthiness judgments. In an experimental study (N = 415), we examined whether healthiness judgments toward a 200 g cookie box are impacted by the organic label, nutrition information (fat and sugar levels), and price and determined the relative importance of these attributes. In particular, we assessed whether food with an organic label could contain more fat or sugar and yet be judged to be of equivalent healthiness to food without this label. We hoped to estimate the magnitude of any such effect. Moreover, we explored whether these effects were obtained when including a widely used system for labeling food healthiness, the Traffic Light System. Although participants' healthiness choices were mainly driven by the reported fat and sugar content, the organic label also influenced healthiness judgments. Participants showed an organic halo effect leading them to consider the organic cookie as healthy as a conventional one despite containing more fat and sugar. Specifically, they considered the organic cookie as equivalent in healthiness to a conventional one, although containing 14% more of the daily reference intake for sugar and 30% more for fat. These effects did not change when including the Traffic Light System. This effect of the organic label could have implications for fat and sugar intake and consequent impacts on health outcomes.

The organic diet effect on person perception.

The organic halo effect describes how individuals tend to ascribe positive attributes such as low-calorie content to organic food. In this contribution, we extend the organic halo effect to the inferences individuals make about organic food consumers regarding basic personality traits. In a first study (N = 608), we tested whether describing a person as a regular (vs. rare) consumer (man vs. woman) who buys and regularly (vs. rarely) consumes organic food influences inferences of the Big Six personality traits and other characteristics. Results showed that a person depicted as a regular consumer of organic food is perceived as more honest, more agreeable, more conscientious, and more open. A second study (N = 214) with a similar procedure tested whether the effects from the previous study were due to the frequency information by manipulating the type of food (organic vs. conventional) and the high-frequency information (present vs. absent). We also included a measure of the Dark Triads traits to see whether this effect only applies to positive traits. Results generally confirmed the previous pattern. However, organic consumers were also judged as more narcissistic. Merging the two studies, we also showed that the organic halo effect was stronger for participants who frequently consume organic food. We discuss results in light of the large effect sizes and the evidence suggesting that while positive valence plays a role, it cannot explain the trait inferences' extent and specificity.

Assessment of Personality Functioning in Adolescence: Development of the Adolescent Personality Structure Questionnaire.

Adolescence is a crucial period for the development of personality and its dysfunctions. In this regard, it is essential to evaluate the nature and degree of maladaptive personality functioning. However, measures currently available present some limitations, mainly being adaptations from adult's tailored instruments and length. Moreover, no instrument considers the crucial dimensions related to body development and sexuality. This contribution presents data on the Adolescent Personality Structure Questionnaire (APS-Q) development, a self-report measure to capture core aspects of personality functioning in adolescence while being agile and reliable. On two large samples of adolescents (total N = 1,664), we investigated the psychometric properties of the APS-Q. We explored its factor structure and construct and incremental validity in the first sample, testing specific associations with existing measures of severity of personality pathology, maladaptive personality traits, and psychological distress. In the second sample, we confirmed its factor structure, assessing gender and age invariance. Overall, our findings support the APS-Q's validity as a reliable and useful measure to assess personality functioning. Moreover, the APS-Q highlighted developmentally vital dimensions such as self-functioning (encompassing mental and bodily changes and considering the dimension of sexuality), interpersonal functioning (discriminating the dimensions of family and peers), and emotion regulation.

Telework quality and employee well-being: Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) forced organisations to implement intensive telework for many of their workers overnight. This scenario was completely new, and the emergency caused by COVID-19 created the possibility of experimenting with new ways of working with an unknown impact on employee well-being. Drawing on previous literature, we defined a model of telework quality consisting of the following four core domains: agile offices within organisations, functional remote workstations, flex-time and engaging management. We identified two high-quality and low-quality telework profiles using latent profile analysis on a data sample of 2295 insurance and financial sector employees. Demographic, occupational and procedural characteristics were associated with the probability of being in the positive or negative profiles. Our results showed that employees' emotional exhaustion and work engagement levels were related to telework quality. This study suggests that organisations need to consider the quality of telework to effectively adopt new ways of working that foster employee well-being.

Would You Rather Be Safe or Free? Motivational and Behavioral Aspects in COVID-19 Mitigation.

This work investigates the relationship between goals and mitigation behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Study 1 (pilot) identified goals ascribed to following and violating mitigation-related indications. Study 2 investigated the structure of and link between COVID-related goals and behaviors in a large community sample (N = 995, 301 men). Our results showed substantial relationships between goals and behaviors. Goals were best described by a bi-dimensional structure (being safe vs. being free), whereas behaviors clustered into a three-component structure (hygiene, distancing, going out). Hierarchical multiple regressions demonstrated the incremental validity of goals in the prediction of behaviors. Network analysis suggested that goals imbued with social content were more directly related to both risky and preventive behaviors. Motivational aspects emerged as important contributors to the organization of behaviors in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Psychometric properties of the embodiment scale for the rubber hand illusion and its relation with individual differences.

The Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) opened the investigation of the sense of body ownership in healthy people. By putting in slight contrast vision touch and proprioception, healthy people embody a fake hand in one's body representation. The easiness of the procedure, typically measured with a set of questions that capture the subjective experience, favoured its blooming. However, validation studies of embodiment questionnaires are lacking, and the individual differences that contribute to the embodiment received little attention. In our study, 298 participants underwent an RHI procedure following both synchronous and asynchronous (control) visuo-tactile stimulations. The study had multiple aims: (a) to explore the psychometric structure of a 27-items questionnaire largely used in the literature; (b) to build a psychometrically efficient scale to measure embodiment-related phenomena; (c) to explore whether and how individual differences (empathy, self-esteem and mindfulness) are associated with the experience of illusion. We found a relatively simple structure consisting of three components: embodiment of the rubber hand, disembodiment of the biological hand, physical sensations experienced during the procedure. The scales designed were psychometrically reliable and theoretically meaningful, encompassing 18 of the original items. Finally, by adopting a network analysis approach, we found that the embodiment is directly related to empathy and self-esteem, while disembodiment and physical sensation are unrelated to individual personality traits. The study provides substantial evidence to use the embodiment scale as a standard questionnaire for future RHI studies. Additionally, the correlations with personality traits suggest that the embodiment induced by the RHI deeply integrates with the complexity of the individuals and their differences.

The HEXACO-100 Across 16 Languages: A Large-Scale Test of Measurement Invariance.

The HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised (HEXACO-PI-R) has become one of the most heavily applied measurement tools for the assessment of basic personality traits. Correspondingly, the inventory has been translated to many languages for use in cross-cultural research. However, formal tests examining whether the different language versions of the HEXACO-PI-R provide equivalent measures of the 6 personality dimensions are missing. We provide a large-scale test of measurement invariance of the 100-item version of the HEXACO-PI-R across 16 languages spoken in European and Asian countries (N = 30,484). Multigroup exploratory structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analyses revealed consistent support for configural and metric invariance, thus implying that the factor structure of the HEXACO dimensions as well as the meaning of the latent HEXACO factors is comparable across languages. However, analyses did not show overall support for scalar invariance; that is, equivalence of facet intercepts. A complementary alignment analysis supported this pattern, but also revealed substantial heterogeneity in the level of (non)invariance across facets and factors. Overall, results imply that the HEXACO-PI-R provides largely comparable measurement of the HEXACO dimensions, although the lack of scalar invariance highlights the necessity for future research clarifying the interpretation of mean-level trait differences across countries.

Changing attitudes towards healthy food via self-association or nutritional information: What works best?

Individual attitudes, both implicit and explicit, have been identified as one of the multiple drivers of consumer behaviors, including food-related ones. Building on such evidence, in this contribution we seek at increasing implicit and explicit consumer attitudes towards a healthy food, comparing the effectiveness of two different treatments. The former is based on a self-association task, that aims at inducing changes in the evaluation of an object thanks to its positive association with the self. The latter is based on information provision. We test if attitude formation can be moderated by the individual level of nutritional knowledge and health-concern. Additionally, we explored whether the study conditions applied could ultimately affect consumers' preferences for specific product attributes using a Discrete Choice Experiment. The main findings provide insights for future policy strategies aimed at promoting more healthful food consumption. Indeed, the self-association increased implicit attitudes and consumer preferences' towards healthy food, whereas information, that represents the main target of food policy interventions, seems to have no impact on individual attitudes and choice behaviors.

Music Education at School: Too Little and Too Late? Evidence From a Longitudinal Study on Music Training in Preadolescents.

It is widely believed that intensive music training can boost cognitive and visuo-motor skills. However, this evidence is primarily based on retrospective studies; this makes it difficult to determine whether a cognitive advantage is caused by the intensive music training, or it is instead a factor influencing the choice of starting a music curriculum. To address these issues in a highly ecological setting, we tested longitudinally 128 students of a Middle School in Milan, at the beginning of the first class and, 1 year later, at the beginning of the second class. 72 students belonged to a Music curriculum (30 with previous music experience and 42 without) and 56 belonged to a Standard curriculum (44 with prior music experience and 12 without). Using a Principal Component Analysis, all the cognitive measures were grouped in four high-order factors, reflecting (a) General Cognitive Abilities, (b) Speed of Linguistic Elaboration, (c) Accuracy in Reading and Memory tests, and (d) Visuospatial and numerical skills. The longitudinal comparison of the four groups of students revealed that students from the Music curriculum had better performance in tests tackling General Cognitive Abilities, Visuospatial skills, and Accuracy in Reading and Memory tests. However, there were no significant curriculum-by-time interactions. Finally, the decision to have a musical experience before entering middle school was more likely to occur when the cultural background of the families was a high one. We conclude that a combination of family-related variables, early music experience, and pre-existent cognitive make-up is a likely explanation for the decision to enter a music curriculum at middle school.