Psychological Capital, Self-Advocacy, and Future Orientation among Adults on the Autism Spectrum.

The paper offers an innovative exploration of the mediating role of psychological capital (PsyCap) in the relations between future orientation and self-advocacy among high-functioning adults on the autism spectrum. We posited that PsyCap, a composite of hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism, serves as a crucial mediator of future orientation and self-advocacy. The sample comprised 40 high-functioning adults on the autism spectrum. Future orientation, self-advocacy, and PsyCap were significantly correlated among young adults with ASD. PsyCap was a mediator of the relations between future orientation and self-advocacy. The findings contribute to the understanding of psychological factors influencing self-advocacy and future orientation and have practical implications for interventions aimed at enhancing PsyCap to improve self-advocacy and future orientation in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

The Influence of Manipulating and Accentuating Task-Irrelevant Information on Learning Efficiency: Insights for Cognitive Load Theory.

The paper endorses Cognitive Load Theory and offers insights into the characterization of the mechanisms underlying extraneous cognitive load and their impact on basic learning. Students were asked to learn associations between eight base-code words and eight digits, based on an example, and to rapidly apply their new knowledge in a test section. Two groups of 60 university students participated in two experiments. The study was implemented as two distinct experiments, one using color names (e.g., blue, yellow) and the other using color-related word concepts (e.g., sky, banana) for stimulation. Each experiment had two conditions that manipulated the location and salience of task-irrelevant color information (extraneous cognitive load) and its congruity with the digits' corresponding base-code words. Findings indicated extraneous cognitive load has the potential to both sustain and undermine learning processes by varying the overall cognitive load, with gains and costs in learning efficiency resulting from essentially different processing scenarios.

Personal Well-being and Recovery in Peer Support Specialists Working at Psychiatric Hospitals.

Objectives: Personal well-being is a major part of recovery for the many people who experience mental illness. Peer support specialists are mental health professionals who have themselves experienced mental illness and use their recovery experiences to facilitate the healing of others. In this study, we explored how peer specialists view their subjective well-being in their work with others and how they perceive their profession. Methods: Seven peer specialists working in a psychiatric hospital participated in individual interviews. We asked them about their personal experiences, their subjective well-being, and their perceptions of the peer specialist profession. We analyzed the interviews thematically. Results: The peer specialists' responses emphasized the link between mental health recovery and subjective well-being. Our findings also indicated the importance of positive relationships and community belonging as fundamental to subjective well-being, and consequently, to recovery. Conclusions: The insights that peer support specialists have acquired and the tools they have mastered in their own recovery process highlight the valuable experience-based knowledge and skills they can provide to others. Future studies may investigate how the experience of their own well-being and recovery directly influences their work with others.

Psychological capital's mediation of anxiety-related patterns of thinking and academic adjustment among university students.

Objective: The study examined psychological capital's (PsyCap) role in the relations between anxiety-related patterns of thinking (rumination, obsessive-compulsive disorder, test anxiety) and students' academic adjustment. It argued the relations are not direct but are mediated by PsyCap. Participants: Participants were 250 s-year or higher university undergraduates in Israel; 60.4% in second year, 35.6% in third, 4% in fourth; 111 men (44%), 139 women (56%); age 18-40 years (mean age = 25, SD = 2.52). Participants were recruited through flyers distributed on campus. Methods: Six questionnaires tested study hypotheses: one gathered demographic information; five assessed anxiety-related patterns of thinking, PsyCap, and academic adjustment. Results: Findings showed PsyCap mediated relations between anxiety-related patterns of thinking (rumination, obsessive-compulsive disorder, test anxiety) and academic adjustment and was a crucial factor in explaining variance in academic adjustment. Conclusions: University policymakers may consider developing short-term intervention programs to foster PsyCap and thus possibly promote students' academic adjustment.

Does Procrastination Have a Cultural or a Neurological Source? Evidence of its Mediating Role in the Relationship Between Psychological Capital and Academic Adjustment.

Objective: I examined the relationships between psychological capital (PsyCap), academic adjustment, and tendency toward procrastination in 3 groups of students in higher education-an ethnocultural minority group (Israeli Arabs), a neurotypical ethnocultural majority group (Israeli Jews), and an ethnocultural majority group diagnosed with learning disabilities (Israeli Jews with learning disabilities). The goal was to deepen and expand understanding of the factors that affect academic adjustment. Methods: Overall, 449 post-secondary students enrolled in various academic institutions in Israel participated in the study. The data were collected using an online Qualtrics questionnaire. Results: First, I hypothesized a positive relationship between PsyCap and academic adjustment and a negative relationship between those 2 variables and academic procrastination. This hypothesis was fully corroborated. Second, I hypothesized that students from an ethnic minority group and majority students with a diagnosed neurological disability would present lower levels of PsyCap and academic adjustment and higher levels of academic procrastination than a majority neurotypical group. The hypothesis was only partially confirmed. Third, I hypothesized that the higher the PsyCap, the lower the degree of academic procrastination and, in turn, the higher the academic adjustment. The hypothesis was confirmed. Conclusion: The findings can help support the design of academic assistance programs to improve the integration into higher learning of students who belong to special groups.

What Can Help Students Cope with COVID-19? The Contribution of Psychological Capital, Selfcompassion, and Spirituality to Subjective Well-being.

Objectives: In this research, we examined the academic and psychological coping of post-secondary students during the early stages of COVID-19. The main goal was to investigate correlations involving self- compassion, spirituality, psychological capital, and subjective well-being, and evaluate the mediating role of self-compassion and spirituality in the relationship between psychological capital and subjective well-being.Methods: We had 257 participants (ages 19-59) complete 5 questionnaires: demographic and academic information, Psychological Capital Questionnaire, Subjective Well-Being Index, Spiritual Intelligence Self- Assessment Inventory, and Self-Compassion Index. Results: We found a strong positive correlation between psychological capital, self-compassion, and subjective well-being. However, spirituality failed to show statistically significant correlations with self-compassion and subjective well-being, with only weak correlations with psychological capital. Self-compassion positively mediated the relationship between psychological capital and subjective well-being, but not spirituality. Conclusion: These findings indicate the role of positive psychological resources of post-secondary students in coping with a difficult situation like COVID-19.

Does task-irrelevant colour information create extraneous cognitive load? Evidence from a learning task.

Previous studies have shown that task-irrelevant information impedes learning by creating extraneous cognitive load. But still open is whether such intrusion reflects a purely semantic phenomenon or whether it also stands for sheer perceptual interference. Using Cognitive Load Theory as a framework, this study aimed to answer this question by examining whether and how task-irrelevant colour information modifies extraneous cognitive load in relation to a new code-learning paradigm. For this purpose, university students were asked to learn, based on an example, associations between colour-related and colour-unrelated words and digits presented in black or in a mismatched ink colour. Evident costs in learning efficacy were found in learning the associations between words and digits for colour-related, but not for colour-unrelated, word stimuli. This suggests that interference by task-irrelevant information in learning stands for a mere semantic conflict. Implications of the findings for extraneous cognitive load on learning efficacy are discussed.

Stroop-like effects in a new-code learning task: A cognitive load theory perspective.

To determine whether and how learning is biased by competing task-irrelevant information that creates extraneous cognitive load, we assessed the efficiency of university students with a learning paradigm in two experiments. The paradigm asked participants to learn associations between eight words and eight digits. We manipulated congruity of the digits' ink colour with the words' semantics. In Experiment 1 word stimuli were colour words (e.g., blue, yellow) and in Experiment 2 colour-related word concepts (e.g., sky, banana). Marked benefits and costs on learning due to variation in extraneous cognitive load originating from processing task-irrelevant information were evident. Implications for cognitive load theory and schooling are discussed.