Objectives. The aim of this study was to identify the differences in negative affect and life satisfaction in the context of subjective poverty, objective poverty, marital status, economic activity ...and gender. In particular, the significance of poverty variables. Participants and settings. The research sample consisted of 499 Slovak respondents (249 women; 250 men, average age M = 39.60, SD = = 11.47). Data were collected using the Satisfaction with Life Scale and the Negative Affect Scale from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The subjective assessment of poverty was measured by the question "In your economic situation, is it possible to make ends meet?" and objective poverty by "What is your monthly income after taxes?" Hypotheses. It was hypothesized the main effects of objective poverty and subjective poverty on negative affect and life satisfaction and interaction effects of objective poverty and subjective poverty with other selected independent variables (marital status, economic activity, gender) on negative affect and life satisfaction. Statistical analysis. MANOVA was used for the statistical analysis. Results. The results confirm the main effect of subjective poverty in life satisfaction and negative affect. In terms of life satisfaction, interactions between gender and objective poverty, gender and subjective poverty as well as between gender, marital status and economic activity were found. With regards to negative affect, the study found interactions between gender and objective poverty as well as between objective poverty and subjective poverty. Study limitations. The limitation of this study is the failure to include certain variables into the analysis such as the size of residence by population, regions according to the unemployment rate or gender roles.
The study had two main goals: Firstly, the authors aimed to verify the validity and reliability of the Slovak adaptation of the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS). Secondly, the authors examined the ...associations between the CAS and mental health indicators – depression, insomnia and generalized anxiety disorder. The representative sample consisted of 1625 Slovak participants from the general population (793 men and 832 women, Mage = 42.77 ±12.84). The data were collected in October 2020. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and multiple hierarchical regression analysis. The authors confirmed that the psychometric properties of the CAS were adequate. Furthermore, they identified predictors of depression (gender, income, change in economic situation, subjective poverty, CAS), generalized anxiety disorder (gender, age, change in economic situation, subjective poverty, CAS) and insomnia (change in economic situation, subjective poverty, CAS). The results may contribute to our understanding of the pandemic’s impact on mental health.
Individual variables are discussed in three views on perception of the causes of poverty - individualistic, structural, fatalistic, analyzing them in terms of income, gender, age, education, race, ...political voting behaviour/ ideology, belief in a just world, and providing aid. The individualistic perception of the causes of poverty ascribes the blame to the individual. The structural perception of the causes of poverty blames the system or the society; blame for poverty is seen outside of the individual. The fatalistic perception of the causes of poverty sees the cause in fate. The individualistic view on perception of the causes of poverty was confirmed mostly amongst men, people of lower education and in the political voting behaviour/ideology of rightists, Independents and Conservatives. A structural view on perception of the causes of poverty was confirmed by women, people of low income, prevailingly older respondents, black Africans and coloured respondents, in people leftist of political voting behaviour/ideology, Democrats, liberals and Labour voters group and by those providing aid (welfare allocations). A fatalistic view on perception of the causes of poverty was not broadly confirmed in studies. The focus of interest also included the aspirations of poor people when compared to the non-poor and showed there was no exclusivity of high or low aspirations of the poor respondents. More detailed findings and implications for future research are summarized.
Many school-age pupils are undecided about their future vocation. This often stems from a lack of occupational information or lack of vocationally related experience. The goal of this study was to ...develop and evaluate an intervention focused on the possibility of changing vocational interests through the simulation of vocational activities. The sample consisted of 250 pupils who were finishing primary school. The intervention was constructed for practical and artistic interests and consisted of workbooks that aim to simulate these vocational activities. MANCOVA showed no effect in the change of vocational interests among the pupils. An alternative idea of intervention in the form of virtual reality simulations is also presented.
The changes in people’s mental health have become one of the hot topics during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents have been said to be among the most vulnerable groups in terms of the imposed ...anti-pandemic measures. The present paper analyzes the trends in mental health indicators in a sample of Slovak parents (
N
= 363) who participated in four waves of data collection over a year and a half of the COVID-19 pandemic. The mental health indicators were represented by general levels of depression and anxiety as well as COVID-related stress and anxiety. While there were only minor changes in depression and anxiety, the dynamic in COVID-related stress and especially anxiety was more noteworthy. Besides some exceptions, the results hold even after controlling for the socioeconomic situation. The gender differences in the mental health trends were found to be negligible. Overall, we observed no substantial deterioration in the mental health indicators across the four waves of the study.
Background: Previous research on the perceived causes of poverty has been carried out in the field of sociology (Strapcová, 2005) as well as social psychology (Nasser & Abouchedid, 2001). This ...research has looked at individuals' perceptions of the causes of poverty and the effect of various sociodemographic variables such as social class (Kluegel & Smith, 1981), income (Lever & Trejo, 2004), subjective assessment of one's economic situation (Strapcová, 2005), gender (Bullock, 1999), age (Niemelä, 2008), education (Hunt, 1996) and employment (Strapcová, 2005). The majority of these studies have been conducted on people who have not directly experienced poverty such as university students (Cozzarelli et al., 2001), middle-class people (Kluegel & Smith, 1981) and social workers (Bullock, 2004). Therefore, there have only been a few studies done on how poor people perceive the causes of poverty (Bullock, 1999; Davids & Gouws, 2013; Morçöl, 1997). Research goal: The present study has two objectives. The first one was to determine whether there are statistically significant differences in the individualistic, structural and fatalistic perceived causes of poverty between the objectively poor and objectively non-poor as well as between the subjectively poor and subjectively non-poor. Secondly, it was to identify the predictors of the individualistic, structural and fatalistic perceived causes of poverty among selected variables including gender, age, marital status, employment status, education, objective poverty and subjective poverty. It was hypothesized that the objectively poor would prefer less individualistic and more structural as well as fatalistic perceived causes of poverty in comparison with the objectively non-poor. It was also hypothesized that the subjectively poor in comparison with the subjectively non-poor would prefer less individualistic and more structural as well as fatalistic perceived causes of poverty. In addition, it was assumed that sociodemographic variables such as objective poverty, subjective poverty, gender, age, marital status, employment status and education would be significant predictors of the structural, fatalistic and individualistic perceived causes of poverty. In particular, it was hypothesized that objective poverty, subjective poverty, gender, and age would be confirmed as positive predictors of structural and fatalistic perceived causes of poverty while marital status, employment status and education would be confirmed as negative predictors. Within the individualistic perceived causes of poverty, it was hypothesized that marital status, employment status and education would be significant positive predictors while objective poverty, subjective poverty, gender and age would be significant negative predictors. Method: The research sample consisted of 150 respondents (77 men and 73 women) aged between 19 and 64 years old (M = 36.67; SD = 13.23). In terms of education, 17 participants stated that primary school had been their highest level of education, 31 participants stated that they had left secondary school without A level exam, 46 participants had left with A level exam and 56 participants had a university degree (15 of them had a Bachelor's degree, 39 participants had a Master’s and 2 participants had a PhD). In terms of marital status, 73 participants were single, 8 cohabitated, 49 were married, 13 were divorced and 7 widowed. With regards to employment status, 79 participants were full-time employed, 11 worked part-time, 27 were unemployed, 7 were retired, 6 were on sick/disability leave invalid retirees and 20 respondents reported their employment status as “other“ (9 of them were self-employed, 9 were students and 2 were on maternity leave). The data were dichotomized into groups according to age (19-25, 26-45, and 46-64 years old), according to relationship status (those not in a relationship and those who are), groups with lower and higher educational attainment and groups of non-working and working participants. For the data collection, occasional sampling was conducted in seven charitable organizations in the regions of Prešov, Košice, and Banská Bystrica in Slovakia. In addition, voluntary response sampling was used through an online survey. In order to assess the perceived causes of poverty, the Attributions for Poverty questionnaire (Bullock et al., 2003) was used. The subjective assessment of poverty was measured by the question “In your economic situation, is it possible to make ends meet?” (Nygård et al., 2017). The equivalent disposable household income of each respondent was calculated as an indicator of objective poverty. The research data were analysed in the statistical program IBM SPSS Statistics. Both a Welch t-test and Mann-Whitney U test were used to verify the first goal of the study. For the second goal, a multiple hierarchical linear regression analysis stepwise method was used. Results: There were statistically significant differences found in the structural as well as fatalistic perceived causes of poverty between the objectively poor and objectively non-poor as well as between the subjectively poor and subjectively non-poor. The objectively poor and subjectively poor were found to have higher scores in both the structural and fatalistic perceived causes of poverty in comparison with the objectively non-poor and subjectively non-poor. There were no statistically significant differences found between the objectively poor and objectively non-poor nor between the subjectively poor and subjectively non-poor in the individualistic perceived causes of poverty. The results of the regression analysis showed that when the 9 predictors were inputted in three blocks (1. gender, age-3 groups, marital status, 2. education, employment status, 3. objective poverty, subjective poverty), none of them appeared to be significant in terms of the individualistic perceived causes of poverty. For the structural as well as fatalistic perceived causes of poverty only one of the input predictors was shown to be positively significant. Subjective poverty was found to explain 4.2% of the variance in structural and 8.3% in the fatalistic perceived causes of poverty. Conclusion: The findings provide insight into the widely up to now unexplored issue of perceived causes of poverty in Slovakia. Future research on the perceived causes of poverty among the poor could focus on self-assignment of the participant to either the group of the poor or non-poor, distinguish between one's own poverty and the poverty of others and include other variables such as ethnicity, religion, belief in a just world as well as life satisfaction.
The main aim of the study is to examine relationship among socio-economic (SES), socio-metric (SMS) status, personal belief in a just world and subjective well-being. Also another aim of the study is ...to verify mediation effect of personal belief in a just world on the relationship between socio-economic (SES), socio-metric status (SMS) and subjective well-being (positive and negative emotions). Research sample consisted of 191 respondents from Slovakia (73 men and 118 women, from 16 to 48 years old, M = 24.47, SD = 5.57). The test battery consisted of a number of standardized research tools: Emotional Habitual Subjective Well-being Scale (Džuka & Dalbert, 2002), Personal Belief in a Just World Scale (Dalbert, 1999), The MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status (Adler & Stewart, 2007; Giatti et al., 2012). The data was processed using the statistical program SPSS 21. 0. For testing mediation was used Hayes’s (2016) MACRO process in SPSS. Correlation analysis and mediation were used to verify the main aim of the study. SES and SMS as predictor variables (X), personal belief in a just world as mediator (M), and positive and negative emotions as an outcome variable (Y) were measured by separate calculations. The results of the study confirmed significant positive correlation between SES, SEM and positive emotions and negative correlation between SEM and negative emotions. However, relationship between SES and negative emotions was not confirmed. Also the results confirmed significant positive correlation between personal belief in a just world and SES, SEM and subjective well-being. The results also confirmed indirect effect of SES and SMS on negative emotions via personal belief in a just world. Bootstrapped 95% confidence interval does not contain zero, so the indirect effect is significant at the p <0. 05. We also tested the mediation effect of personal belief in a just world on the relationship between SES and positive emotions and between SMS and positive emotions. In both tested models the mediation was not significant. People with higher SES, SMS and personal belief in a just world experience more positive emotions. If people have lower SMS and personal belief in a just world, they experience more negative emotions. The results confirmed that a personal belief in a just world changes the relationship between SES and negative emotions and SMS and negative emotions. Lower SES and SMS people have, they believe less in a just world and experience more negative emotions. It would be recommended for further research to focus on clarifying mediation effect of personal belief in a just world on the relationship between SES, SMS and well-being on representative research sample. Based on unrepresentative research sample in this study, we cannot generalize the outcomes on the whole population, however study represents first view in the research of relationship between SES, SMS, personal belief in a just world and well-being. We believe that this study contributes to existing literature and results can be used also in intervention program for poverty people with lower SES and SMS. In conclusion authors focused also on the importance of investigation poverty topic in context of personal belief in a just world.
Od začiatku pandémie COVID-19 sa intenzívne študoval jej vplyv na duševné zdravie (napr. Wu a kol., 2021; Nochaiwong a kol., 2021). Na celom svete boli zavedené opatrenia na obmedzenie šírenia ...koronavírusu. Tieto však narúšali pracovný a rodinný život jednotlivcov. Sociálna izolácia, zatváranie vzdelávacích inštitúcií, finančná neistota a zmeny v zdravotnej a sociálnej starostlivosti narušili život rodín, najmä tých s deťmi (Gadermann a kol., 2021). Predovšetkým rodičia boli vystavení viacerým stresujúcim situáciám, ktoré sa týkali ich samotných, ako aj ich detí (Adams a kol., 2021). Znášali tiež ťažkosti so starostlivosťou o deti vzdelávané v domácom prostredí počas online vyučovania, popri snahe udržať si svoju prácu. To spôsobilo ich zraniteľnosť voči finančnej neistote, poklesu príjmu alebo strate zamestnania (Ananat, Gassman-Pines, 2020). Javí sa teda, že negatívny vplyv COVID-19 bol oveľa výraznejší pre rodičov v porovnaní s nerodičmi (Park a kol., 2020).
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