Passionate Experiences in Adolescence: Situational Variability and Long‐Term Stability

This study investigates adolescents' situational passionate experiences, defined as states of strong commitment and intense affect. We examine the extent to which experiencing passion was specific to situations versus individual differences, and explore which activities are likely to elicit adolescents' passion. Using longitudinal experience sampling method (ESM) data from a representative sample of 996 adolescents (54.6% females) in three cohorts (6th, 8th, and 10th grade at baseline), we examine whether adolescents' frequency of passionate experiences remained stable across 2 years. Results of multilevel analyses revealed that situational determinants accounted for 80% of variance in passion, while 20% were due to characteristics of the person that remained stable across 1 week of ESM assessment. An adolescent's percentage of passionate experiences among all observed experiences remained stable across 2 years in rank order and mean level.     

Attachment Perspective on Marital Dissolution and Relational Family Therapy

Divorce or dissolution of a long-term intimate relationship is an event on the continuum of an individual’s experience of attachment injury that is reawakened and played out again in this process. An attachment injury means the experience of rejection and betrayal of trust at a critical time of distress when one is in need of support. By means of the case study method, the article presents a case of a female client dealing with divorce. The history of traumatic relations through a lens of attachment theory is presented, along with divorce as the reawakening of an attachment injury and its processing in a relational family therapy model.     

Causes of Divorce from the Perspective of Females in Slovenia

Divorce is a stressful life transition and does not have a single cause. This article presents the results of qualitative research on the causes for separation as perceived by women in Slovenia. Ten interviews were carried out with women divorced for less than 10 years and between 29 and 57 years old. The women created their own meanings of the reasons for divorce, all of which corresponded with other studies. The findings confirm the complex factors that contribute to the disintegration of marriage and that existed prior to the divorce. The research results present a vantage point for developing preventive activities that foster improved quality of interpersonal relationships in Slovenia.     

Assessing Critical-Analytical Listening Skills in Math and Engineering Students: An Exploratory Inquiry of How Analytical Listening Skills Can Positively Impact Learning

In this article, the researchers discuss the implementation of the Ferrari, Lynch, and Vogel Listening Test (FLVLT) to two STEM areas: Mathematics and Computer Science. The goal of the present study was to assess the improvement in students’ mastery of critical listening skills and how listening can help students to retain information. After students were introduced to the subject matter, two specifically tailored listening assessment tools were designed. Pretests and posttests were then administered in an introductory algebra (n = 29 students) and a network fundamentals course (n = 13 students). These tests were administered approximately four weeks apart. The data show that the FLVLT model is reliable for judging students’ critical listening skills and curricular knowledge. Furthermore, a 12% and 20% improvement in students’ ability to match the content pattern to a spoken message was found. In addition, a correlational analysis suggested that improvement in critical listening skills helped students’ learning.     

Etablierung einer Vertrauenskultur zwischen Führungskräften und ihren Mitarbeitern/Mitarbeiterinnen

Trust is considered to be fundamental for satisfactory social relationships. In organizational systems, trust is also necessary, but sometimes neglected and underestimated. Considering young adults (millennials), trust and its power as a social resource seem to be highly relevant for the future: In public perception young adults show low involvement and commitment, for example in social or organizational assignments. But, participation and commitment are closely linked with the experience of trust. Authentic and fair behaviour as well as presenting oneself as a role model are crucial to promote a culture of trust between leaders and employees. To outline this, a leadership-model for promoting commitment and participation by trust actions is presented.     

Achieving the Optimal Vaginal State: Using Vaginal Products and Study Gels in Uganda,Zimbabwe, and South Africa

Preferences and practices related to the vaginal condition have implications for the use of vaginal HIV prevention products. The authors used qualitative methods to explore narratives relating to the vaginal state amongst women in South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe who had previously participated in a biomedical HIV prevention trial. They investigated women's behaviors related to optimizing the vaginal state, experiences and perceptions of the gel's effect on the vaginal state and on penile-vaginal intercourse, women's narratives on male partner perceptions, and how preferences relating to the vaginal state may have interfered with gel use.     

“Beyond GDP” Effects on National Subjective Well-Being of OECD Countries

Some authors claim that maximizing subjective well-being is a more meaningful social objective than maximizing GDP and that other factors beyond income play a major role in defining well-being. In this work, we study two issues connected with this claim, looking at the context of OECD member countries. We look at the crowded category of proposed, “beyond GDP” policy-controlled factors, searching for evidence that some might be major determinants of national average subjective well-being. We also seek to compare any such effect with that of GDP, in order to evaluate if these factors have a better chance of leading to a maximization of well-being than GDP itself. In our analyses, we make use of partial order methods that have been rarely applied to this field of study. They seem particularly appropriate to the case, as well-being and its components are generally theorized as strongly multidimensional while standard modeling strategies require a great deal of compromise when working with many potential regressors and non-trivial levels of multicollinearity.     

Fear of childbirth in primiparous Italian pregnant women: The role of anxiety,depression, and couple adjustment

Background

The prevalence of fear of childbirth in pregnant women is described to be about 20–25%, while 6–10% of expectant mothers report a severe fear that impairs their daily activities as well as their ability to cope with labour and childbirth. Research on fear of childbirth risk factors has produced heterogeneous results while being mostly done with expectant mothers from northern Europe, northern America, and Australia.

Wealth Accumulation Inequality: Does Investment Risk Tolerance and Equity Ownership Drive Wealth Accumulation?

This study examined the savings aspect of wealth accumulation by estimating differences in financial risk tolerance and equity ownership among individual investors. Data were obtained from a proprietary dataset that collected over 15,000 risk-tolerance attitude responses between late 2007 and early 2013. Two research methodologies were utilized: cluster analysis and ANCOVA. The cluster analysis identified four investor profiles: (a) young lower-income women, (b) young unmarried men, (c) young college-educated men, and (d) older men with high income and education. Results from the ANCOVA test indicated that each cluster had significantly different levels of equity ownership, controlling for financial risk tolerance. Results provide a framework and methodology for future research on issues related to wealth inequality, investment behavior, and risk attitudes. The ability to group individuals similarly can be an important tool for researchers, policy makers, social activists, financial advisers, financial counselors, and educators when analyzing the household and macroeconomic wealth profile of United States residents.