Grip on Life as a possible antecedent for self-control beliefs interacts with well-being and perceived stress.

Self-control has been established as an important factor in various domains of life, significant for general well-being; thus, a self-induced lack of self-control may prove detrimental for well-being. Self-induced lack of self-control may stem from implicit beliefs about self-control as a limited resource, but research has shown this belief to be unwarranted. Furthermore, it has been shown that a belief about self-control resources as unlimited has a positive effect on many domains in life and ultimately on well-being. This study addresses the question of antecedent beliefs about self-control resources and proposes personal Grip on Life, defined as skill-based goal setting and goal approaches, as a possible antecedent. This points to development of interventions altering a limited belief to an unlimited belief based on empowerment of one's Grip on Life.

The moral compass and life skills in navigating radicalization processes: Examining the interplay among life skills, moral disengagement, and extremism.

The present study investigated the interplay among deficient life skills, moral disengagement, and extremist attitude across two national contexts. Using a sample of young students in high school or college (N = 686), the present study found significant indirect effects between deficient life skills (agency and structure) and various aspects of an extremist mindset through moral disengagement. These findings suggest that these two psychological concepts of life skills and moral disengagement are relevant for understanding and countering violent radicalization processes; that is to say that morality can direct the life skills toward either violent extremism or nonviolent, legal civil participation. Furthermore, the development and empowerment of life skills could enhance individual resilience to morally disengaging narratives and radicalized ideologies.

Capturing violent radicalization: Developing and validating scales measuring central aspects of radicalization.

Violent radicalization has emerged as an important topic of theoretical and empirical investigation motivated by the devastating face of terrorism and by the aim of preventing such expressions of extremism. One central aspect of such research inquiries is the foundation of solid measurement. In this article, we develop and validate two generic scales pertaining to (1) endorsement of extremism and (2) acceptance of violent and/or illegal means. In conclusion, the scales yielded sound psychometric properties and cross-cultural equivalence, providing a solid measure of the important aspects of extremism which can be empirically employed in elucidating generic mechanisms of violent radicalization processes.

Indication of drier periods on Mars from the chemistry and mineralogy of atmospheric dust.

The ubiquitous atmospheric dust on Mars is well mixed by periodic global dust storms, and such dust carries information about the environment in which it once formed and hence about the history of water on Mars. The Mars Exploration Rovers have permanent magnets to collect atmospheric dust for investigation by instruments on the rovers. Here we report results from Mössbauer spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence of dust particles captured from the martian atmosphere by the magnets. The dust on the magnets contains magnetite and olivine; this indicates a basaltic origin of the dust and shows that magnetite, not maghemite, is the mineral mainly responsible for the magnetic properties of the dust. Furthermore, the dust on the magnets contains some ferric oxides, probably including nanocrystalline phases, so some alteration or oxidation of the basaltic dust seems to have occurred. The presence of olivine indicates that liquid water did not play a dominant role in the processes that formed the atmospheric dust.