Daily associations between global self-esteem and self-concept clarity and their relationships with subjective well-being in a sample of adult workers.

OBJECTIVES: The present pre-registered study examined the reciprocal day-to-day associations between global self-esteem and self-concept clarity and their incremental validity with respect to daily life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. METHODS: We used intensive longitudinal data from 153 adult workers (45.1% women), over a period of 31 days. Data were analyzed using dynamic structural equation modeling. RESULTS: Results attested higher global self-esteem and self-concept clarity mean levels for older vs. younger participants, and lower global self-esteem and self-concept clarity variability for older vs. younger participants. Furthermore, global self-esteem and self-concept clarity were correlated at a cross-sectional daily level, yet only self-concept clarity states positively predicted subsequent global self-esteem states, while global self-esteem states did not predict subsequent self-concept clarity states. Daily global self-esteem and daily self-concept clarity further predicted subsequent daily higher life satisfaction and positive affect, respectively. CONCLUSION: Overall, our findings shed light on the short-term relationships linking global self-esteem and self-concept clarity, pointing to their discriminant validity in predicting individuals' subjective well-being.

Development of a Culture-Common Formal Characteristics of Behavior - Temperament Markers Inventory (FCB-TMI-CC).

The goal was to create a brief temperament inventory grounded in the Regulative Theory of Temperament (FCB-TMI-CC), with a user-friendly, online applicability for studies in different cultures. As the regulative role of temperament is strongly revealed under meaningful stress, the study was planned within the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure high diversity in terms of culture, economic and environmental conditions, data from nine countries (Poland, United States of America, Italy, Japan, Argentina, South Korea, Ireland, United Kingdom and Kazakhstan) were utilized (min. N = 200 per country). Validation data were gathered on the level of COVID-19 stressors, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety and stress symptoms, and Big Five personality traits. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis served as the basis for the inventory's construction. The final culture-common version includes 37 items (5-6 in each of the 7 scales) and covers the core aspects of temperament dimensions. Temperament structure was confirmed to be equivalent across measured cultures. The measurement is invariant at the level of factor loadings and the reliability (internal consistency) and theoretical validity of the scales were at least acceptable. Therefore, the FCB-TMI-CC may serve as a valuable tool for studying temperament across diverse cultures and facilitate cross-cultural comparisons.

Beliefs in Regulating Negative Emotions and Vagally Mediated Heart Rate Variability: Does Sex Make a Difference?

OBJECTIVE: This ecological study explored the association between regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative emotions (RESE-NE) and heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of parasympathetic modulation of the heart that has been positively associated with a better ability to flexibly adjust to a changing environment and regulate emotions. METHOD: To test these associations, we used data from 161 adults working in relational professions (about 40% men; mean [standard deviation] age = 40.45 [14.17] years) whose HRV was assessed continuously for 24 hours. RESULTS: Individuals high in RESE-NE showed increased HRV levels ( ß = -0.05, p = .011). However, this effect was moderated by biological sex ( ß = -0.18, p = .0001) such that RESE-NE positively and significantly predicted HRV for men ( ß = 0.18, p < .0001) but not for women ( ß = -0.001, p = .989). CONCLUSIONS: All in all, our study provides initial empirical support for the theoretical expectation derived from social cognitive theory that RESE-NE is positively correlated with a physiological indicator of adaptability to the environmental demands. This was true only for men, likely because of sex differences in physiological stress reactivity and regulation.

Age-Related Variations of Genetic and Environmental Contributions to the Covariation of Fear, Distress and Externalizing Symptoms: A Twin Study in Childhood and Adolescence.

The frequency with which Internalizing and Externalizing symptoms co-occur suggests that, behind both domains, there may be a common susceptibility represented by a general psychopathology factor. However, it's still unclear whether this common susceptibility is affected by age-related variations. Internalizing (i.e., Fear and Distress) and Externalizing symptoms were evaluated in 803 twin pairs from the population-based Italian Twin Registry. Model-fitting analysis was performed separately in the 6-14 and 15-18 age groups to estimate genetic and environmental contributions to the covariance among symptoms. For the 6-14 group, a multivariate Cholesky model best fitted the data, while, for the 15-18 group, the best fit was provided by a Common Pathway model in which nearly 50% of total variance of each trait was mediated by common genetic factors. Our findings support a common susceptibility behind Internalizing and Externalizing symptoms, mainly genetic in origin, that becomes more evident at the beginning of puberty.

Who helped yesterday will help tomorrow: Trait and state components in prosocial goal realisation.

The present study aims to disentangle the state and trait components of prosocial goal realisation, defined as a set of personally meaningful prosocial actions undertaken in natural settings. Based on a diary study with seven daily measurements from 180 participants (a total of 1005 data points), we performed temporal variance decomposition using the STARTS model. The observed individual scores are explained by: ST-a common trait factor, capturing variance stable across days; ART-a unique autoregressive trait factor, capturing variance changing from 1 day to the next; and S-state factors, a series of uncorrelated factors reflecting occasion-specific variance. The results demonstrate the relative stability of prosocial goal realisation, extending the knowledge on the state/trait distinction in actual prosocial behaviour.

Determinants of workers' well-being during the COVID-19 outbreak: An exploratory study.

Inspired by the Conservation of Resource theory (Hobfoll, 1989), this study investigated the role of a broad set of personal vulnerabilities, social, and work-related stressors and resources as predictors of workers' well-being during the COVID-19 outbreak. Participants were 594 workers in Italy. Results showed that personality predispostions, such as positivity, neuroticism and conscientiousness as well as key aspects of the individuals' relationship with their work (such as job insecurity, type of employment contract or trust in the organization) emerged as factors promoting (or hampering) workers' adjustment during the COVID -19 outbreak. Interactions between stressors and resources were also found and discussed. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-021-02408-w.

Determinants of the intention to donate umbilical cord blood in pregnant women.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Umbilical cord blood (UCB) donation is a behaviour promoted by many countries' health systems. However, UCB donation is not a widespread behaviour among expectant mothers, and little is known about the reasons that may lead to it. The aim of the present study was to analyse the contribution of Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) variables among both primiparous and multiparous women in predicting intention to donate UCB. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Three hundred seventy-six expectant mothers completed questionnaires that captured sociodemographic data, parity, previous donation, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control (PBC) and intention to donate UCB. Multigroup analysis structural equation modelling was conducted using Mplus (version 8.02). RESULTS: Multigroup path analyses showed that intentions were strongly predicted by subjective norms and moderately predicted by positive attitudes and PBC in both primiparous and multiparous women. TPB constructs explained 71% of the variance in intentions for both groups. CONCLUSIONS: Future interventions to increase intention to donate among primiparous and multiparous women could primarily consider the influence of partner and significant others in determining positive intentions and secondarily target increasing positive attitudes and perceptions of control.

Self-esteem development during the transition to work: A 14-year longitudinal study from adolescence to young adulthood.

INTRODUCTION: Previous studies examined the trajectory of self-esteem during critical developmental periods and over the life-span. However, little is known about how self-esteem changes during the school-to-work transition. METHOD: We examined the effect of beginning a job for the first time on self-esteem development, using data from 368 adolescents assessed up to six times across a 14-year time span. Specifically, we analyzed the pattern of self-esteem change during the transition to work and whether the self-esteem trajectory varied as a function of several school- and job-related variables, while controlling for important covariates. RESULTS: Results revealed linear increases in self-esteem across the 14-year study period, with partial support that the rate of increase slowed slightly after the school-to-work transition. We found significantly greater variability in the slopes after the transition, supporting the idea that people differ in the way they cope with the developmental tasks associated with important life transitions. We also found evidence for an interaction between college graduation and educational expectations, such that the positive effect of college graduation on self-esteem change was stronger for those who graduated with low (vs. high) educational expectations. CONCLUSION: School-to-work transition has an effect on self-esteem development. Developmental processes of findings were discussed.

The validity of the higher-order structure of effortful control as defined by inhibitory control, attention shifting, and focusing: A longitudinal and multi-informant study.

OBJECTIVE: Effortful control (EC) has been conceptualized as a higher-order construct defined by a class of self-regulatory mechanisms. However, the developmental higher-order structure of EC has seldom been investigated with a thorough psychometric analysis. To begin to fill this gap in the literature, data were obtained from parents and teachers of 185 children (age at T1: M = 9.43 y/o, SD = 1.17) every 2 years for 8 years. METHOD: We used a structural equation modeling approach for assessing if EC develops as a higher-order factor superordinate to three commonly studied self-regulatory mechanisms, namely inhibitory control (IC), attention focusing (AF), and attention shifting (AS). RESULTS: Results showed that (a) IC, AF, and AS followed a similar pattern of growth, (b) EC displayed an acceptable degree of scalar longitudinal invariance when operationalized as a latent variable indicated by IC, AF, and AS, (c) a higher-order structure explained the co-development of IC, AF, and AS, and (d) stability and change in EC negatively predicted externalizing symptoms, much better than the stability and change of IC, AF, and AS, but only for parents' reports. CONCLUSION: Overall, the higher-order structure of EC was supported, but our results also indicated that there is a certain degree of uniqueness in its facets.

BIS and BAS Sensitivities at Different Levels of Personality Description: A Latent-Variable Approach with Self- and Informant-Ratings.

We examine the structural overlap of the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) and the Behavioral Approach System (BAS) with Stability and Plasticity, the two higher-order factors encompassing the Big Five. Carver and White's BIS/BAS and the Big Five Inventory were administered to a sample of 330 adults, serving both as targets and informants. Self- and other-ratings were modeled by using the Correlated Trait-Correlated Method model. BIS and BAS correlated highly with metatraits, after method variance and measurement error were partialled out: BIS was positively related to Stability, while BAS was positively related to Plasticity and negatively related to Stability. After the higher-order factors were controlled, the BIS was highly and positively related to Emotional stability, whereas the BAS had a small but significant relationship with Extraversion. Findings are discussed with regard to the most appropriate level of generality/specificity at which the personality correlates of BIS and BAS can be investigated.

Personality trait change at work: Associations with organizational socialization and identification.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates associations between Big Five personality trait change, organizational socialization, and organizational identification during a 3-year police officer training program (N = 416 police officer cadets). METHOD: Participants completed a questionnaire measuring the Big Five personality traits when they entered the training academy, and then, completed the same personality questionnaire, along with measures of organizational socialization and identification, during their 2nd (n = 360) and 3rd (n = 397) year of training. RESULTS: Results corroborated the hypotheses that (a) the Big Five traits can show systematic changes even across a relatively short time period and (b) this change is functional, given that the latent difference scores of all Big Five traits significantly predicted increases in organizational socialization and identification. CONCLUSION: The Big five personality traits showed significant mean level changes across the 3-year training program. Although these changes were not fully consistent with theoretical expectations, they did predict two aspects of organizational adjustment (socialization and identification). The theoretical and practical implications of these findings were discussed.

Stability and change of basic personal values in early adolescence: A 2-year longitudinal study.

OBJECTIVE: We examined patterns of change and stability in the whole set of 10 Schwartz values over 2 years during early adolescence. METHOD: Participants completed the Portrait Values Questionnaire repeatedly throughout the junior high school years. The study involved six waves of data and a total of 382 respondents aged 10 years at the first measurement occasion (43% female). We investigated multiple types of stability in the values: mean-level, rank-order, and ipsative stability. RESULTS: At the mean-level, self-enhancement, and Openness to change values increased in importance. Self-direction and hedonism values showed the greatest increase-about one-third of a standard deviation. Conservation and self-transcendence values did not change with the exception of tradition, which decreased slightly. After correcting for measurement error, rank-order stability coefficients ranged from .39 (hedonism) to .77 (power). Correlations between value hierarchies measured 2 years apart were ≥.85 for 75% of respondents, and ≤.12 for 5% of the respondents. Thus only a small proportion of participants experienced a marked change in the relative importance they ascribed to the 10 values. CONCLUSIONS: Results are discussed and related to earlier findings on patterns and magnitude of value change during other periods of the life span.

A look into the relationship between personality traits and basic values: A longitudinal investigation.

OBJECTIVE: The present study examines the longitudinal association between basic personal values and the Big Five personality traits. METHOD: A sample of 546 young adults (57% females) with a mean age of 21.68 years (SD = 1.60) completed the Portrait Values Questionnaire and the Big Five Questionnaire at three time points, each separated by an interval of 4 years. Cross-lagged models were used to investigate the possible reciprocal relations between traits and values, after the stability of the variables was taken into account. RESULTS: We found that values did not affect trait development. Traits, by contrast, have some effects on how values change. Specifically, high levels of Agreeableness predict an increase over time in the importance assigned to benevolence values. Similarly, high levels of Openness predict a later increase in the importance assigned to self-direction values. The same effect was not found for the other traits. Additionally, except for in the case of Emotional Stability, traits showed synchronous (i.e., within wave) correlations with values, suggesting that part of this relationship is due to common antecedents. CONCLUSIONS: Mechanisms underlying the associations between traits and values are discussed.

Eating disorder symptoms and the 2 × 2 model of perfectionism: mixed perfectionism is the most maladaptive combination.

PURPOSE: The 2 × 2 model of perfectionism (Gaudreau and Thompson in Personal Individ Diff 48:532-537, 2010) represents an important addition to the perfectionism literature, but so far has not been studied in relation with disordered eating. METHOD: Using the 2 × 2 model as analytic framework, this study examined responses from a convenience sample of 716 participants aged 19-68 years (71% female) investigating how self-oriented perfectionism (SOP) and socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP) predicted individual differences in eating disorder symptoms, additionally controlling for body mass index, gender, and age. RESULTS: Results showed a significant SOP × SPP interaction indicating that the combination of high SOP and high SPP-called "mixed perfectionism"-was associated with the highest levels of eating disorder symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: The findings demonstrate the utility of the 2 × 2 model of perfectionism as an analytic framework for examining perfectionism and disordered eating. Moreover, they suggest that mixed perfectionism is the most maladaptive form of perfectionism when it comes to disordered eating, such that having high levels of SPP combined with high levels of SOP represents the most maladaptive combination of perfectionism in terms of risk of eating disorder. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level V, cross-sectional descriptive study.

Adult Empathy: Possible Gender Differences in Gene-Environment Architecture for Cognitive and Emotional Components in a Large Italian Twin Sample.

Empathy plays a central role in prosocial behavior and human cooperation. Very few twin researchers have investigated innate and environmental effects in adult empathy, and twin research on gender differences in these effects is sparse. The goal of this study was to examine innate and environmental influences on three components of an empathy scale frequently used with adults - the expression of cognitive (CE), emotional (EE), and social skills (SS) empathy - and to explore gender differences in the influences. Study participants were ~1,700 twins (18-65 years) enrolled in the Italian Twin Registry. Empathy was assessed with the Italian version of the Empathy Quotient (EQ), for which the three-factor structure (i.e., CE, EE, and SS) was confirmed. Twin correlations in monozygotic and dizygotic pairs, and males and females were estimated for the total EQ and subscale scores, and univariate genetic model fitting was carried out. Women's empathy (i.e., total EQ as well as CE and EE subdimensions) was predominantly driven by genetic factors and individual experiences, whereas for males, no genetic contribution or important shared and individual environmental effects emerged. Although of large magnitude, the gender differences did not reach statistical significance. Age did not moderate empathy heritability in adulthood. Only for the SS subscale were genetic and environmental proportions of variance similar for men and women. This study suggests possible gender-specific innate and environmental influences on empathy and its cognitive and emotional components that need to be confirmed in future studies.

Parental Burden and its Correlates in Families of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Multicentre Study with Two Comparison Groups.

BACKGROUND: The effects of having a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) on parents are multifaceted and pervasive. While ample evidence has been provided that these families are under severe stress, there are still several knowledge gaps and unresolved questions. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed at quantifying the subjective and objective burden of ASD in mothers and fathers, and at improving the understanding of the interplay between parental burden, child's characteristics, and parents' coping resources and strategies. METHODS: The parents of 359 children/adolescents with ASD were compared to parents of age-matched patients with Down syndrome (N=145) and Type 1 diabetes mellitus (N=155). Child's clinical characteristics and parents' caregiving burden, psychological distress, coping resources and strategies were assessed. RESULTS: The parents of children with ASD reported higher objective and subjective burden, more frequent psychological distress, lower social support. Mothers reported greater subjective burden than fathers. Structural equation modeling showed that the most consistent positive and negative predictors of objective and subjective burden were ASD symptom severity and social support, respectively. Other positive predictors were engagement, distraction and disengagement coping, intellectual disability, and adaptive functioning. Other negative predictors were spiritual wellbeing and hardiness. Some effects were indirect through social support and coping strategies. CONCLUSION: This study confirmed that parents of children with ASD carry a huge caregiving burden, and added to our understanding of the factors associated with burden. The findings may help inform the design of effective interventions aimed at reducing burden among the parents of children with ASD.

Second-Order Growth Mixture Modeling in Organizational Psychology: An Application in the Study of Job Performance Using the Cusp Catastrophe Model.

In recent years, research in organizational psychology has witnessed a shift in attention from a mostly variable-focused approach, to a mostly person-focused approach. Indeed, it has been widely recognized that the study of worker's heterogeneity is a meaningful and necessary task of researchers dealing with human behavior in organizational contexts. As a consequence, there has been growing interest in the application of statistical analyses able to uncover latent sub-groups of workers. The present contribution was conceived as a tutorial for the application of one of these statistical analyses, namely second-order growth mixture modeling, and to illustrate its inner links with concepts from non-linear dynamic models. Throughout the paper, we provided (a) a discussion on the relationships between growth mixture modeling and the cusp catastrophe model; (b) Mplus syntaxes and output excerpts of a longitudinal analysis conducted on job performance (N = 420 employees rated once a year for four consecutive years);

Double dissociation between the neural correlates of the general and specific factors of the Life Orientation Test-Revised.

In this article, we explore the neural correlates of the general and specific factors assessed by the Life Orientation Test-Revised. These factors have been shown to assess general optimism (GO) and a form of self-enhancement akin to unrealistic optimism (SP). Toward our aim, we used a standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA), which provides electroencephalographic (EEG) localization measures that are independent of recording reference. Resting-EEG and self-report measures of GO and SP were collected from 51 female undergraduates. EEGs were recorded across 29 scalp sites. Anterior and posterior source alpha asymmetries of cortical activation were obtained by using the sLORETA method. On the basis of previous research findings, ten frontal and six parietal regions of interest (ROIs) were derived. Alpha asymmetry in the posterior cingulate (i.e., BA31) was uniquely associated with GO. In contrast, SP was associated with areas of the inferior frontal gyrus (BA44, BA45) and with the left subcentralis area (BA43). Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are provided and discussed.

The Role of Ego-Resiliency as Mediator of the Longitudinal Relationship between Family Socio-Economic Status and School Grades.

Family socio-economic status (SES) represents one of the major determinants of youth's scholastic achievement, and thus it is important to unravel the psychological factors underlining this relation. In this article, we examined youth's ability to flexibly adapt and, thus, cope with harsh environmental conditions-assessed by the construct of ego-resiliency-as a mediating mechanism in the across-time association between family SES and academic achievement. The longitudinal sample was composed of 265 (56% females) Italian students who were about 13 years old at Time 1 (T1) and about 18 years old at Time 2 (T2). In a structural equation model analysis, family SES significantly predicted ego-resiliency 6 years later while controlling for the latter's strong longitudinal stability. Students' school grades at the end of senior high school were also predicted by ego-resiliency assessed at the age of 13, controlling for grades in the last year of junior high school, gender, and initial differences in ages. In accordance with the posited hypothesis, this study provided support for a two-wave meditational model in which the relation between family SES at 13 years and later school grades at 19 years was mediated by ego-resiliency. All in all, results support the argument that being resilient, and thus being able to flexibly adapt one's own emotional state and resultant behavior, matters to school success.

The Relation of Pro-Sociality to Self-Esteem: The Mediational Role of Quality of Friendships.

The present longitudinal study examined the role of quality of friendship in mediating the relation of pro-sociality to self-esteem over time. Participants were 424 Italian young adults (56% females) assessed at two waves (M(age) = 21.1 at Time 1; M(age) = 25 at Time 2). An autoregressive cross-lagged panel model was used to test the mediational model. Self- and friend-report measures of pro-sociality, quality of friendship, and self-esteem were included in the analyses. Results were in line with the hypothesized paths, with quality of friendship mediating the relation of pro-sociality to later self-esteem above and beyond its high stability. Self-esteem, in turn, predicted pro-sociality 4 years later. Overall, the present findings support the potential benefits of behaving pro-socially for an actor in terms of increased perceived self-worth and also expand previous work by outlining the specific mediational role of the quality of friendships. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.