Risky Parental Practices and Their Implications in Adult Psychopathology

There are many ways in which an individual may fail as a parent. Most parents have good intentions, but that’s the exact reason why there’s an urgent need to clarify good parenting practices. This paper will look at risky parenting practices (e.g., guilt-inducing criticism) and their relationship with psychopathology (depression and anxiety, in this case) using socially prescribed perfectionism as a mediator. All eight mediations turned out to be statistically significant with six out of eight analyses being full mediations. Also, the relationships between the facets of perfectionism, depression, and anxiety are consistent with the findings of other studies up until this point. Considering the relationship between socially prescribed perfectionism and psychopathology, practical implications are discussed.

To Speak or Not to Speak in Public: A Non-Randomized Controlled Trial Regarding the Effects of a Public Speaking Program

Public speaking has become an increasingly sought-after skill, which is why more and more people choose to get professionally trained. But is it possible for a public speaking program to have other effects, in addition to improved performance? The aim of this study is to discover the effects of a public speaking program on reducing social anxiety, public speaking anxiety and shame, and also on increasing self-efficacy. The sample (high-school and university students) consisted of 164 participants aged between 15 and 47 years, M = 19.93, SD = 4.70. There were 82 participants in the experimental group and 82 participants in the control group, and the instruments used were: Liebowitz's Scale for Social Anxiety (Liebowitz, 1987), Personal Report on Public Speaking Anxiety (McCroskey, 1970), General scale of self-efficacy (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995), Cognitive Schema Questionnaire (Young, 2005). A test-retest design was approached, the participants completing the questionnaires one week apart from the others. The results indicate that a public speaking program is useful for reducing social anxiety and public speaking anxiety, with significant differences between the experimental and control groups. However, in terms of self-efficacy and shame, the results were not conclusive. Thus, even if there has been a decrease in shame and an increase in self-efficacy, it is not clear whether these changes can be attributed to the proposed program. This study can serve as the beginning of a program that can contribute to reducing the level of social anxiety and public speaking anxiety..

Personality, Learning Strategies, and School Performance in Adolescents

The aim of this study is to analyze the relationships between personality factors, learning strategies and school performance in adolescents. The study was attended by 499 students enrolled in seven high schools in Constanța County, 240 boys (48%) and 259 girls (52%), aged between 14 and 18 years, M = 16.80, SD = .82. The instruments used were the Questionnaire for Learning Strategies and School Motivation Assessment, SMALSI (Stroud & Reynolds, 2006) and the CP5F Questionnaire (Albu, 2008) based on the Five-Factor Personality Inventory, FFPI (Hendriks, 1997). School performance was represented by the general grade obtained by the students in the previous year of study. The results showed that, among the personality factors, only agreableness and autonomy are positively associated with school performance. However, personality factors are positively associated with learning strategies, which mediate the relationship between them and school performance. Students' weaknesses (low academic motivation, test anxiety, attention difficulties) are negatively associated with academic performance and mediate its relationship with personality factors. The practical implications of the study address the need to provide students with appropriate learning opportunities and especially to teach them how to learn, in order to adopt the most appropriate strategies that will lead them to success.

Dark Triad, Counterproductive Work Behaviour and Job Performance

Dark personality traits are also known as the dark triad which is a multidimensional construct, made up of Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. They have recently become a major topic of interest in organizational psychology. The present research aims to demonstrate that the dark triad of personality is a significant negative predictor of job performance and studies the relationship between the dark triad and job performance, having as a mediator counterproductive work behavior. The sample of this study is represented by 137 participants from different organizations with different ages and different work experience ranging from one to 40 years, of which 34 men (24.82%) and 103 women (75.18%). The design adopted is cross-sectional, descriptive, correlational, nonexperimental. In this paper each construct of the triad was taken separately and measured in relation to the other two variables mentioned above, and the results varied depending on this aspect. Thus, only one of the two major hypotheses was supported.

Language and Aggression in Preschool Children. Gender Differences

The present study has two objectives. Firstly to analyze the gender differences in language development in preschool children and secondly to analyze the relationships between language development on the one hand and aggression, prosocial behavior on the other hand. The study involved 155 preschool children aged between 36 and 71 months (M = 52.61, SD = 10.40) enrolled in a kindergarten in Bucharest. The instruments used were the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System, ABAS-II (Harrison et al., 2012) and Preschool Social Behavior Scale - Teacher Form (Crick, 1996). To determine the gender differences, a series of independent samples t tests and Mann-Whitney U nonparametric test were performed and for the relationships among variables, regression and moderation analyzes were performed. The results showed that girls have higher levels of language development than boys, in all measured dimensions. At the same time, the level of language development was negatively associated with physical and relational aggression and positively with prosocial behavior. Contrary to our expectations, gender has not moderated the relationship between language development and aggression or prosocial behavior. The practical implications of the study address the need to capture and treat early delays in language development in order to prevent aggressive behaviors among preschoolers.