Financial Management Practices of Couples with Great Marriages

The purpose of this qualitative study was to learn about financial management practices of 64 self-selected couples from throughout the United States who believe they have great marriages. Three themes emerged from the data. First, for most couples one of the partners handled the day-to-day finances and that required trust and communication. Second, these couples had little or no debt or had a goal of paying off debt. Third, couples lived within their means and were frugal. Other findings described these couples’ practices of having joint or separate accounts, how they dealt with financial challenges, and their view of other couples having financial challenges.     

Empathic responses by cyberbystanders: the importance of proximity

Cyberaggression, and its' specific sub-type, cyberbullying, have become a widely debated and studied issues, but we still lack knowledge about cyberbystanders, whose reactions (or lack thereof) can play a crucial role. One of the important factors determining behavioral outcomes is cyberbystanders’ empathic response to the incident. Certain features of cyberaggression incidents (e.g. distance and the invisibility of those involved) raise the question of what conditions tend to encourage (or inhibit) empathetic responses on the part of cyberbystanders. Therefore, we investigated the link between the empathic responses of 453 Czech adolescent cyberbystanders (age 12–18) and the context in which they become aware of ongoing cybervictimization. We found that being directly present and being informed by the victim increased emotional response, while witnessing it only online or being informed by others had no effect. We discuss the importance of including the dimensions of ‘proximity’ or ‘directness’ in both prevention and intervention efforts and future research on cyberbystanders’ reactions.