Influences of Adoptive Mother and Father’s Parenting and Child’s Temperament on Adoptees’ Social Skills: A Hybrid Dyadic Analysis

Adoption provides a unique opportunity to study the simultaneous effect on adoptees’ development of environmental influences related to adoptive parenting, and children’s biology-based characteristics. In this paper, two Hybrid Dyadic Models were tested to study the mediational role of the adoptees’ negative reactivity on the relationship between mothers and fathers’ supportive (Model A) and unsupportive (Model B) parenting, and adoptees’ social skills. In a sample of 102 couples, mothers and fathers’ reports on adoptees’ social skills, the adoptees’ negative reactivity, and supportive/unsupportive parenting were explored. Supportive/unsupportive parenting was assessed individually (mothers and fathers separately), whereas the adoptees’ negative reactivity and social skills were treated as common fate variables, with both parents’ scores as indicators of a latent construct. Results were non-significant for Model A. Regarding Model B, different relation patterns between unsupportive parenting and social skills were found, depending on whether it was the mother's or the father's parenting. The child's negative reactivity mediated the relationship between the father's (not the mother's) unsupportive parenting and the child's social skills. With information from both parents and considering simultaneously their unique and shared perspectives, this study advances adoption research and strengthens the relevance of dyadic analyses when studying the adoptive family dynamics.

Perceived Coach-Created Motivational Climates as Predictors of Athletes’ Goal Reengagement: The Mediational Role of Goal Motives

Athletes have to face several challenges during the sport season, and one of them could involve dealing with unattainable goals. In these situations, being able to reengage in other goals as a form of goal adjustment and in response to contextual demands is adaptive. According to previous literature, some aspects of the athletes’ social context, such as coach-created motivational climates, could encourage more adaptive responses in athletes, and so it is possible that these climates would also promote athletes’ goal regulation and goal reengagement. The purpose of this study was twofold: to analyze whether athletes’ perception of empowering and disempowering climates were related to their goal reengagement through the mediation of goal motives; and to examine the interaction between the two climates when they predict reengagement through athletes’ goal motives. Participants were 414 Spanish university athletes (49.5% male, 50.5% female) who belonged to different university teams, with ages ranging from 17 to 33 years old (M = 20.61, SD = 2.58). In the sport facilities, all of them completed questionnaires that evaluated their perception of empowering and disempowering climates, their goal motives, and their goal reengagement. Structural equation modeling (SEM) results showed that perceived empowering climate positively predicted autonomous goal motives, which in turn had a positive relationship with goal reengagement. Conversely, perceived disempowering climate positively predicted controlled goal motives, which were not related to goal reengagement. Thus, we only found support for the indirect relationship between perceived empowering climate and goal reengagement through autonomous goal motives. Moderated mediation analyses revealed that interaction effects between perceived empowering and disempowering climates were not significant in the prediction of goal reengagement through goal motives. Findings revealed that the perception of empowering climates promotes athletes’ goal reengagement when goals become unattainable via the increase in their autonomous goal motives. Conversely, when athletes perceive disempowering climates, they have more controlled goal motives, which are not related to goal reengagement. In addition, the study supports the need to educate coaches to create more empowering and less disempowering climates.

An explicit investigation of occupational stress and safety behavior on the relationships between supportive leadership and safety compliance in sewerage industry

This study aims to examine the influence of supportive leadership on occupational stress, safety behaviour and safety compliance of workers working in Indah Water Konsortium Sdn. Bhd. (IWK) Malaysia. Moreover, the study intends to investigate the mediational role of occupational stress and safety behaviour. Supportive leadership negatively influence occupational stress while positively influences safety behaviour. Occupational stress put a negative effect on safety behaviour and safety compliance, while safety behaviour has a positive effect on safety compliance. Supportive leadership positively influence safety compliance. Occupational stress and safety behaviour partially mediate the relationship between supportive leadership and safety compliance. The outcomes of this study offer significant insights into the management of Indah Water Konsortium Sdn. Bhd. (IWK) to reduce occupational stress, encourage safety behaviour, and improve safety compliance by providing supportive leadership to the workers. Unlike other industries, the sewerage operation industry (in Malaysia) is under an intensive work burden and work pressure that eventually causes occupational stress, lack of safety compliance and ignorance of safety behaviours among workers. The link of supportive leadership with safety compliance is scare with the mediating role of occupational stress and safety behaviour, especially in the sewerage industry particularly in developing countries such as Malaysia.

AgingPLUS: A Randomized Trial to Increase Physical Activity in Middle-Aged and Older Adults

Engagement in physical activity (PA) has well-documented benefits for delaying or preventing age-related diseases. Thus, it is important to study innovative ways to increase PA in the adult population. This symposium describes AgingPLUS, an ongoing trial that addresses three psychological mechanisms to increase adults’ PA: Negative views of aging (NVOA), low self-efficacy beliefs, and deficient goal-planning skills. The symposium also presents preliminary findings, based on a pre-pandemic subsample, on changes in explicit NVOA, implicit VOA, and changes in PA. Diehl et al. describe the theoretical background and study design of the ongoing RCT. This also includes the main study hypotheses. Rebok et al. present preliminary findings showing significant effects of the intervention on NVOA and frequency of moderate intensity exercise. Effects on physical function and accelerometry measures were not statistically significant in this subsample. Tseng et al. examined the effects of the intervention on two measures of implicit VOA: a lexical decision-making task (LDMT) and the Brief Implicit Association Test (BIAT). Findings showed that differences in post-intervention latencies on the LDMT were not statistically significant. Differences on post-intervention BIAT d scores also failed to be significant. Finally, Nehrkorn-Bailey et al. tested a multiple mediator model examining the mediational role of self-efficacy (SE) and exercise intention (EI) on PA. Results showed that Week 4 SE significantly mediated the effect of intervention condition to Week 8 anticipated PA engagement. Week 4 EI significantly mediated the effect of intervention condition on Month 6 PA engagement. Anticipated PA effects predicted subsequent involvement in PA.

The mediational role of social support in the relationship between stress and antenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms among Australian women: a mediational analysis

Background Pregnancy can be a stressful period for most women and their family members, and the mental wellbeing of pregnant women can face serious challenges. Social support can play a role in improving the psychological well-being of pregnant women by enhancing the stress coping ability and alleviating stressful conditions. The current study aimed to assess the mediating effects of social support in the relationship between perceived stress and depressive symptoms as well as anxiety symptoms during pregnancy among Australian women. Methods Of the 8,010 women who completed Survey 6 of the 1973–78 Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH) cohort in 2012, those who reported being pregnant (n = 493) were included in the current analyses. Antenatal depressive and anxiety symptoms were assessed using the 10 item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D-10) scale, and the 9-item Goldberg Anxiety and Depression scale (GADS) respectively. The 19 item-Medical Outcomes Study Social Support index (MOSS) was used to examine social support. A parallel mediation model was used to explore the mediational role of each domain of social support between perceived stress and antenatal depressive and anxiety symptoms. Result The study found that emotional/informational support has a partial mediating effect on the relationship between perceived stress and antenatal depressive symptoms (β = 0.371, 95% CI: 0.067, 0.799) and on the relationship between perceived stress and antenatal anxiety symptoms (β = 0.217, 95% CI: 0.029, 0.462). Affectionate support/positive social interaction and tangible support was found to play no significant mediation role between stress and antenatal depressive and anxiety symptoms. Conclusions Emotional/informational support appears to play a mediating role in the relationship between stress and antenatal depressive as well as between stress and antenatal anxiety symptoms. In order to further protect pregnant women from the effects of stress, policy makers and maternal health professionals are advised to develop community-based social support programs to enhance prenatal psychosocial support and ensure pregnant women have adequate emotional/information support.

The AgingPLUS Trial: Intervening to Promote Physical Activity in Middle-Aged and Older Adults

This paper investigated whether the AgingPLUS program promotes physical activity in middle-aged and older adults by examining outcomes at weeks 4 and 8 with baseline scores included as covariates. The analyses assessed intervention effects on negative views of aging (NVOA), physical activity (CHAMPS), physical function (SPPB, VO2max), and accelerometry measures (e.g., minutes sedentary). We found significant intervention effects on NVOA (p < .001) and frequency of moderate intensity exercise (p = 0.048), but no significant effects on physical function, VO2max, or the accelerometry measures. Standardized effect sizes for the significant effects ranged from 0.31 to 1.03 standard deviation units. These findings suggest that AgingPLUS improved motivational factors for engaging in physical activity but did not lead to objective changes in physical activity in the short term. Further research will investigate the mediational role of these motivational factors in enhancing physical activity over the longer term (6 months).