Life satisfaction, health-related quality of life and physical activity after treatment for valvular aortic stenosis.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate health-related quality of life and life satisfaction in children and adolescents treated for isolated congenital valvular aortic stenosis compared to healthy peers. Our second aim was to investigate the relationship between objectively measured physical activity, health-related quality of life and life satisfaction in the same group. METHODS: Forty-eight patients, 8-18 years of age, were recruited, as well as 43 healthy peers matched for age, gender and residential area. Health-related quality of life was assessed by the KIDSCREEN-52 self-report and parent proxy report, and life satisfaction was evaluated with the Satisfaction With Life Scale. Physical activity was measured with an accelerometer for 7 days. Sports participation was self-reported. RESULTS: No differences in the health-related quality of life domains were found between patients and controls in the self-reports. In the proxy reports, parents of the adolescents rated their child's autonomy lower than did the parents of the healthy controls. A negative relationship was found between moderate to vigorous physical activity, sports participation, life satisfaction and the psychological well-being domain in adolescent patients. In children there was a positive relationship between moderate physical activity and the physical and psychological well-being domains. CONCLUSION: Overall, children and adolescents treated for valvular aortic stenosis reported similar life satisfaction and health-related quality of life as their healthy peers. The negative relationships between intense physical activity and sports participation with health-related quality of life and life satisfaction in adolescent patients might be explained by both physical and psychological factors in these teenagers with complex, lifelong heart disease.

Children and Adolescents Treated for Valvular Aortic Stenosis Have Different Physical Activity Patterns Compared to Healthy Controls: A Methodological Study in a National Cohort.

Previous research in children and adolescents with congenital heart defects presents contradictory findings concerning their physical activity (PA) level, due to methodological limitations in the PA assessment. The aim of the present cross-sectional study was to compare PA in children and adolescents treated for valvular aortic stenosis with healthy controls using an improved accelerometer method. Seven-day accelerometer data were collected from the hip in a national Swedish sample of 46 patients 6-18 years old treated for valvular aortic stenosis and 44 healthy controls matched for age, gender, geography, and measurement period. Sports participation was self-reported. Accelerometer data were processed with the new improved Frequency Extended Method and with the traditional ActiGraph method for comparison. A high-resolution PA intensity spectrum was investigated as well as traditional crude PA intensity categories. Children treated for aortic stenosis had a pattern of less PA in the highest intensity spectra and had more sedentary time, while the adolescent patients tended to be less physically active in higher intensities overall and with less sedentary time, compared to the controls. These patterns were evident using the Frequency Extended Method with the detailed PA intensity spectrum, but not to the same degree using the ActiGraph method and traditional crude PA intensity categories. Patients reported less sports participation than their controls in both age-groups. Specific differences in PA patterns were revealed using the Frequency Extended Method with the high-resolution PA intensity spectrum in Swedish children and adolescents treated for valvular aortic stenosis.

The role of personality in retirement adjustment: Longitudinal evidence for the effects on life satisfaction.

OBJECTIVE: Research on retirement suggests that personality can influence the adjustment process, but the mechanisms involved remain still largely unknown. In the present study, we investigate direct and indirect associations between the Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction over the retirement transition. Indirect effects were evaluated through the role of personality for levels and changes in self-esteem, autonomy, social support, self-rated physical health, self-rated cognitive ability, and financial satisfaction. METHOD: Our sample consisted of 796 older adults (age 60-66) and four annual measurement waves from the longitudinal population-based HEalth, Ageing, and Retirement Transitions in Sweden (HEARTS) study, including individuals retiring during the study period. RESULTS: Results from multivariate latent growth curve analysis revealed multiple indirect associations between personality and life satisfaction. Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness were positively related to life satisfaction through higher levels of self-esteem, autonomy, and social support. Neuroticism was negatively associated with life satisfaction through lower levels of self-esteem and lower levels and negative changes in autonomy and social support. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that retirees with higher levels of Neuroticism are more vulnerable in the transition process and they are also more likely to experience adjustment problems resulting from negative changes in key resources.

The Association Between Prosocialness, Relational-Interdependent Self-construal and Gender in Relation to Burnout Among Swedish Clergy.

Serving as a clergyperson is a highly variable profession and in recent decades, the role has evolved and expanded even further. Consequently, the demands have increased and with it the risk for stress-related ill-health and absenteeism. The aim of the current study was to evaluate, in a larger sample of Swedish clergy (N = 871), two possible antecedents of burnout, namely prosocialness and relational-interdependent self-construal. A further aim was to explore potential gender differences in the investigated associations. The direct and indirect relationships of prosocialness and relational-interdependent self-construal to two dimensions of burnout, exhaustion, and disengagement were investigated in a structural equation-modelling framework. The results showed that clergy who reported higher prosocialness experienced more stress in their work, in terms of both quantitative and emotional demands, which in turn was associated with higher levels of exhaustion and disengagement. But prosocialness was also found to be directly associated with lower levels of disengagement, as well as indirectly associated with higher levels of role clarity. However, no direct or indirect associations were found between relational-interdependent self-construal and any dimension of burnout. Regarding gender differences, female clergy reported higher levels of prosocialness and job demands, less role clarity, and in turn more exhaustion compared to male clergy. This indicated a more stressful situation for female clergy. Our study contributes new insights into the role that personality plays in different dimensions of burnout in clergy, as well as insights into an understanding of gender differences in burnout among clergy.

Beyond health and economy: resource interactions in retirement adjustment.

Objectives: The retirement transition is a multidimensional and dynamic process of adjustment to new life circumstances. Research has shown that individual differences in resource capability accounts for a substantial amount of the previously observed heterogeneity in retirement adjustment. The aim of the present study was to investigate interaction effects of self-esteem, autonomy, social support, self-rated physical health, self-rated cognitive ability, and basic financial resources on levels and changes in life satisfaction in the retirement transition. Method: Our sample included 1924 older adults from the longitudinal population-based HEalth, Ageing, and Retirement Transitions in Sweden (HEARTS) study. The participants were assessed annually over a three-year period, covering the transition from work to retirement (n = 614). Participants continuously working (n = 1310) were included as a reference group. Results: Results from latent growth curve models showed that the relationship between a particular resource and levels and changes in life satisfaction varied depending on other available resources, but also that these effects varied between retirees and workers. Autonomy moderated the effect of physical resources, and social support and perceived cognitive ability moderated the effect of financial resources. Discussion: Our findings add to the current knowledge on retirement adjustment and suggest that negative effects of poor health and lack of basic financial resources on retirees life satisfaction may be compensated for by higher levels of autonomy, social support, and perceived cognitive ability.

Stability in the metamemory realism of eyewitness confidence judgments.

The stability of eyewitness confidence judgments over time in regard to their reported memory and accuracy of these judgments is of interest in forensic contexts because witnesses are often interviewed many times. The present study investigated the stability of the confidence judgments of memory reports of a witnessed event and of the accuracy of these judgments over three occasions, each separated by 1 week. Three age groups were studied: younger children (8-9 years), older children (10-11 years), and adults (19-31 years). A total of 93 participants viewed a short film clip and were asked to answer directed two-alternative forced-choice questions about the film clip and to confidence judge each answer. Different questions about details in the film clip were used on each of the three test occasions. Confidence as such did not exhibit stability over time on an individual basis. However, the difference between confidence and proportion correct did exhibit stability across time, in terms of both over/underconfidence and calibration. With respect to age, the adults and older children exhibited more stability than the younger children for calibration. Furthermore, some support for instability was found with respect to the difference between the average confidence level for correct and incorrect answers (slope). Unexpectedly, however, the younger children's slope was found to be more stable than the adults. Compared to the previous research, the present study's use of more advanced statistical methods provides a more nuanced understanding of the stability of confidence judgments in the eyewitness reports of children and adults.

Affective work rumination as a mediator of the reciprocal relationships between job demands and exhaustion.

High levels of job demands are considered as the main predictor for teachers' exhaustion, but longitudinal studies of the causal effects are few. Recently it has been suggested that research should further explore possible reciprocal relationships between stressors and strain and investigate if work rumination contributes to explain these relationships. In a sample of teachers (n = 1067) using a three-wave design, we hypothesized positive causal effects of job demands (work pace and role conflict) on affective work rumination, and of affective work rumination on exhaustion. We also hypothesized a positive reversed causal effect of exhaustion on affective work rumination, and of affective work rumination on job demands. Furthermore, affective work rumination was expected to mediate the positive causal and reversed causal effects between job demands and exhaustion. The results partly confirmed the expected causal and reversed causal effects. However, affective work rumination was only found to mediate the reversed causal effect of exhaustion and role conflict. Furthermore, a reciprocal relationship was only found between role conflict and exhaustion. The empirical, theoretical, and practical implications of the study are discussed.

The accuracy of meta-metacognitive judgments: regulating the realism of confidence.

Can people improve the realism of their confidence judgments about the correctness of their episodic memory reports by deselecting the least realistic judgments? An assumption of Koriat and Goldsmith's (Psychol Rev 103:490-517, 1996) model is that confidence judgments regulate the reporting of memory reports. We tested whether this assumption generalizes to the regulation of the realism (accuracy) of confidence judgments. In two experiments, 270 adults in separate conditions answered 50 recognition and recall questions about the contents of a just-seen video. After each answer, they made confidence judgments about the answer's correctness. In Experiment 1, the participants in the recognition conditions significantly increased their absolute bias when they excluded 15 questions. In Experiment 2, the participants in the recall condition significantly improved their calibration. The results indicate that recall, more than recognition, offers valid cues for participants to increase the realism of their report. However, the effects were small with only weak support for the conclusion that people have some ability to regulate the realism in their confidence judgments.

Helping out or helping yourself? Volunteering and life satisfaction across the retirement transition.

It has been suggested that volunteering leads to increases in well-being, particularly in older and retiring adults, and that volunteering could be used as a public health intervention to increase well-being. However, the causal relationship has been questioned. We investigated the association between voluntary work and life satisfaction in a bivariate dual-change score model, using 4 years of longitudinal data from 1,123 participants from the Health, Aging and Retirement Transitions in Sweden (HEARTS) study. Both the frequency of volunteering and the level of life satisfaction increased across the retirement transition. However, baseline life satisfaction and volunteering were only marginally associated. Further, the coupling parameters suggest that higher levels of volunteering were followed by decreases in life satisfaction and that higher levels of life satisfaction were followed by increases in volunteering. These findings suggest that increasing levels of volunteering might not be a fruitful strategy for improving life satisfaction for all older adults-if people engage too much in voluntary work, it might even be detrimental for their life satisfaction. More research is needed to better understand when and for whom increased levels of volunteering might have positive effects on life satisfaction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The Complex Interplay Between Emotion Regulation and Work Rumination on Exhaustion.

This study examined the interplay between emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal and suppression) and work-related rumination (affective work rumination and detachment from work) on exhaustion. In all, 1985 participants from three human service occupations (psychologists, teachers, and ministers) completed the web-based survey. The results showed that reappraisal and detachment from work had a negative relation to exhaustion, whereas the relation between suppression and affective work rumination to exhaustion were positively directed. Moreover, results of mediation analyses showed that the associations between emotion regulation strategies and exhaustion were mediated by work-ruminative tendencies. However, results of moderation analyses did not support that work-ruminative tendencies have a conditional effect (i.e., moderate) on the relationship between emotion regulation strategies and exhaustion. The results suggest that work-ruminative tendencies are best understood as a mediator of the emotion regulation strategies - exhaustion relationship. Thus, the study contribute to the understanding of the strategies (and combination of strategies) people use to reduce exhaustion by adding novel insights into the role of person characteristics in the recovery process. We discuss our results in relation to previous research, provide recommendations for future research, and note possible practical implications.

Experts' and Novices' Perception of Ignorance and Knowledge in Different Research Disciplines and Its Relation to Belief in Certainty of Knowledge.

Assessments of the extent of knowledge in a domain can be important since non-identified lack of knowledge may lead to decisions that do not consider the effect of relevant factors. Two studies examined experts' and novices' perception of their own ignorance and knowledge out of everything there is to know within their own and other disciplines and their assessments of their discipline's, and other disciplines' knowledge of all there is to know in each discipline. In total 380 experts and 401 students from the disciplines of history, medicine, physics, and psychology participated. The results for ignorance and knowledge assessments of one's own knowledge were similar. Novices reported more ignorance and less knowledge in their own discipline than experts, but no differences were found in the assessments of how much is known in each discipline. General belief in certainty of knowledge was associated with the knowledge assessments and level of expertise. Finally, disciplinary differences were found both for the knowledge assessments and for belief in certainty of knowledge. Historians and physicists assessed that less was known in their own discipline out of all there is to know (approximately 40%), compared to the medics (about 50%). Historians believed least in certainty of knowledge and physicists most. Our results have practical implications for higher educational teaching and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Who Knows? Knowledge Activation, Belief in Certainty of Knowledge, Maximization Tendencies and Need for Cognition in Answerability Judgments.

In this study, investigating answerability judgments, 123 participants judged whether each of 46 general knowledge questions could currently be answered by themselves, by someone else, or by no one. There were 26 consensus questions (high expected consensus about their answerability) and 20 non-consensus questions. Before each question, half of the participants rated the extent of their knowledge related to the question. Results showed that answering consensus questions compared with non-consensus led to a lower proportion of "No one knows" answers. Moreover, in the knowledge rating condition compared with the control condition, participants choose "No one knows" proportionally less. Participants' ratings of belief in certainty of knowledge were associated with more "Someone else knows" for the non-consensus questions. Moreover, tendency to maximization led to a higher proportion of "Someone else knows" options for the non-consensus questions. Finally, high need for cognition was associated with fewer choices of "Someone else knows."

Psychological Health in the Retirement Transition: Rationale and First Findings in the HEalth, Ageing and Retirement Transitions in Sweden (HEARTS) Study.

From an aging research and life-course perspective, the transition to retirement marks a significant life-event and provides a unique opportunity to study psychological health and coping during a period of substantial change in everyday life. The aim of the present paper is to: (a) outline the rationale of the HEalth, Ageing and Retirement Transitions in Sweden (HEARTS) study, (b) describe the study sample, and (c) to present some initial results from the two first waves regarding the association between retirement status and psychological health. The HEARTS study is designed to annually study psychological health in the years before and following retirement, and to examine change and stability patterns related to the retirement event. Among a representative Swedish population-based sample of 14,990 individuals aged 60-66 years, 5,913 completed the baseline questionnaire in 2015. The majority of the participants (69%) completed a web-based survey, and the rest (31%) completed a paper version. The baseline HEARTS sample represents the general population well in terms of gender and age, but is more highly educated. Cross-sectional findings from the first wave showed that retired individuals demonstrated better psychological health compared to those who were still working. Longitudinal results from the first and second waves showed that individuals who retired between waves showed more positive changes in psychological health compared with those still working or previously retired.

Do Self- and Proxy Reports of Cognitive Problems Reflect Intellectual Functioning in Children and Adolescents with Congenital Heart Defects?

AIM: Children with congenital heart defects (CHD) who suffer from cognitive impairments and school difficulties need to be identified as early as possible in order to set appropriate interventions in place that may enhance the school situation and quality of life for these children. Identifying children and adolescents at risk for cognitive difficulties requires specific screening tools. This study assessed such a tool - Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Cardiac Module subscale: Cognitive Problems - to investigate whether proxy reported and self-reported cognitive problems were associated with measured intellectual functioning in children and adolescents with CHD treated with surgery or by catheter interventions. METHOD: The sample consisted of 184 children/adolescents aged 3, 5, 9, and 15 years. The severity of the CHD diagnoses was categorized into three groups (mild, moderate, or severe) for all age groups. For all the age groups, we collected proxy ratings of cognitive problems, and for the 5-, 9-, and 15-year-olds, we also collected self-reported cognitive problems. Intellectual functioning was measured with the Wechsler intelligence scales. The control variables were socioeconomic status and severity of diagnosis. RESULTS: A strong association was found between the parent's ratings of cognitive problems and the children's and adolescents' results on the Wechsler scales. This association was present for all ages, including the 3-year-olds. As for the self-reports, an association was only found between the 15-year-olds self-report of cognitive problems and their results on the Wechsler scales. CONCLUSION: To identify children with cognitive problems as early as at the age of 3 years, parent-rated Pediatrics Quality of Life subscale: Cognitive Problems can be used as a screening tool. For 15-year-olds, the self-report ratings can be used as a screening tool. We also suggest a cutoff score of 80 for both the 15-year olds as well as the proxy reports. If the score falls below 80 the child should be formally evaluated using standardized cognitive test.

Does Anyone Know the Answer to that Question? Individual Differences in Judging Answerability.

Occasionally people may attempt to judge whether a question can be answered today, or if not, if it can be answered in the future. For example, a person may consider whether enough is known about the dangers of living close to a nuclear plant, or to a major electricity cable, for them to be willing to do so, and state-authorities may consider whether questions about the dangers of new technologies have been answered, or in a reasonable future can be, for them to be willing to invest money in research aiming develop such technologies. A total of 476 participants, for each of 22 knowledge questions, either judged whether it was answerable today (current answerability), or judged when it could be answered (future answerability). The knowledge questions varied with respect to the expected consensus concerning their answerability: consensus questions (high expected consensus), non-consensus questions (lower expected consensus), and illusion questions (formulated to appear answerable, but with crucial information absent). The questions' judged answerability level on the two scales was highly correlated. For both scales, consensus questions were rated more answerable than the non-consensus questions, with illusion questions falling in-between. The result for the illusion questions indicates that a feeling of answerability can be created even when it is unlikely that somebody can come up with an answer. The results also showed that individual difference variables influenced the answerability judgments. Higher levels of belief in certainty of knowledge, mankind's knowledge, and mankind's efficacy were related to judging the non-consensus questions as more answerable. Participants rating the illusion questions as answerable rated the other answerability questions as more, or equally, answerable compared to the other participants and showed tendencies to prefer a combination of more epistemic default processing and less intellectual processing.

The effects of advice and "try more" instructions on improving realism of confidence.

This study investigated whether participants can improve the accuracy of their confidence judgments by making second-order judgments, and whether advice (attend both to correct and incorrect items and consider the remember/know quality of the item), and "try more" instructions can help increase participants' accuracy. The participants (n=220) made confidence judgments of their answers to 50 recall questions on a video clip. Next, all the participants were asked to try to increase the accuracy of their confidence judgments by modifying those they believed showed poor realism. Although the participants did increase the accuracy of their confidence judgments, neither the advice nor the "try more" instructions improved their accuracy.

Hypnotic experience is related to emotional contagion.

The authors conducted 2 studies to evaluate whether emotional contagion, the propensity to automatically imitate the emotional expressions of others and experience the corresponding emotions, is related to behavioral and experiential indices of hypnotizability and whether such a relationship is influenced by administration context. In Study 1, behavioral and subjective measures of hypnotizability were measured alongside emotional contagion in the same context. In Study 2, different measures of hypnotizability and hypnotic depth were administered, whereas emotional contagion was independently measured in a different (nonhypnotic) context. Emotional contagion correlated with behavioral and experiential indices of hypnotizability in Study 1 but only with the latter in Study 2. The authors interpret the results as reflecting a positive relationship between emotional contagion and, at least, experiential features of hypnotizability and strengthening the case for the importance of affectivity in hypnotic responsiveness.