scholarly journals A Cross-Cultural Study of Distress during COVID-19 Pandemic: Some Protective and Risk Factors

Author(s):  
Ankica Kosic ◽  
Tamara Džamonja Ignjatović ◽  
Nebojša Petrović

Previous studies on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in different countries found an increase in anxiety, stress, and an exacerbation of previous mental health problems. This research investigated some of the protective and risk factors of distress during the COVID-19 pandemic, among which were the perception of receiving social support from family members and friends, and a chronic tendency to worry. The study was conducted in three European countries: Italy, Serbia, and Romania. A total of 1100 participants (Italy n = 491; Serbia n = 297; Romania n = 312) responded to a questionnaire. Results from this study show that distress during the COVID-19 pandemic is higher for people who are chronic worriers and those who have higher levels of fear of COVID-19. More specifically, it is confirmed that a chronic tendency to worry exacerbates the relationship between fear and distress: it is stronger for people who have a greater tendency to worry.

Author(s):  
Maite Soto-Sanfiel

Despite claims that “cinema is dead” or that it only interests nostalgic old-timers, statistics indicate a global increase in theater attendance. Not only is moviegoing still one of the favorite forms of entertainment, but it especially appeals to young people. Moreover, communication research seems to have neglected cinema, but the relationship between modern-day teenagers and the silver screen needs to be observed. This chapter reports the results of a cross-cultural study based on the uses and gratifications paradigm with youngsters from eight European countries. It presents their cinematographic uses and consumption, their motivations for going to the movies, and their preferences and conceptions regarding different movie traditions. The study also performs cross-cultural contrasts to reveal more about the impact of regional, national, and global forces on the psychological relationship between today’s teenagers and cinema.


SAGE Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824401986581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariem Khadhraoui ◽  
Michel Plaisent ◽  
Lassaad Lakhal ◽  
Bernard Prosper

Previous studies considered entrepreneurial orientation as a determinant of firms’ growth and performance. In this research, we are interested in spin-offs. Indeed, we aim to study the relationship between their entrepreneurial orientation and their performance. Therefore, we carried out a cross-cultural study in three different countries; Tunisia, Canada, and Morocco. We opted for a personal survey. We addressed our questionnaire to 180 managers of spin-offs and we analyzed the research variables using SPSS 20.00 (Statistical Packages for Social Sciences) and Smart PLS 3 (Partial Least Squares). Our findings highlight a positive correlation between entrepreneurial orientation and performance of spin-offs within the three samples.


2017 ◽  
Vol 121 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Brailovskaia ◽  
Pia Schönfeld ◽  
Xiao Chi Zhang ◽  
Angela Bieda ◽  
Yakov Kochetkov ◽  
...  

This study cross-culturally investigated resilience and social support as possible protective factors for mental health. The values of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms, resilience and social support were collected from German (N = 4433), Russian (N = 3774), and Chinese students (N = 4982). The samples were split (two-thirds vs. one-third) to cross-validate the results. In all samples, resilience and social support were significantly negatively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. While in Germany those associations were stronger for social support, in Russia and in China stronger associations were found for resilience. Furthermore, in all samples, resilience was found to mediate the association between social support and the negative mental health variables significantly. In conclusion, resilience and social support are universal interrelated protective factors for mental health independently of historical, cultural, social, and geographical conditions of a country.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 753-767
Author(s):  
Tomas Jungert ◽  
Rickard Östergren ◽  
Nathalie Houlfort ◽  
Richard Koestner

Purpose Perceived support from co-workers and managers is important for many organizational outcomes. However, the benefit of competence support from colleagues and school management on personal teacher efficacy has not been investigated. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to investigate the impact of competence support from colleagues and the school management on growth in teacher efficacy and second, to investigate cultural differences (Canada and Sweden). Design/methodology/approach The authors administered an inventory measuring support for competence and personal teacher efficacy to over 400 teachers in Canada and Sweden at 27 schools, at two times. Time 1 took place at the first week of a fall semester and Time 2 at the end of the same semester. Findings Structural equation modeling revealed that competence support from colleagues predicted growth in teacher efficacy, whereas competence support from school management did not. No differences in these relations emerged between Canadian and Swedish teachers. Practical implications The findings have implications for how schools organize teachers in teacher teams so that competence support from co-workers is promoted. Originality/value This study is the first cross-cultural study to empirically show that teachers’ self-efficacy is significantly benefitted by competence support from their teacher peers.


1981 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 803-815 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Sullivan ◽  
R. B. Peterson ◽  
N. Kameda ◽  
J. Shimada

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Biook BEHNAM ◽  
Salam KHALILIAQDAM

Hedges are words whose job is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy. Truth and falsity are a matter of degree, and hedges make natural language sentences more/less true or more/less false.  The purpose of the study is to investigate hedging devices in Kurdish spoken language. The aim is  to know how hedging devices are used in Kurdish spoken discourse. Also the researchers are willing to know whether Kurdish speakers use hedging devices to indicate a lack of complete commitment to the truth of the proposition, and a desire not to express the commitment categorically, or to lessen the impact of an utterance. The data needed for the study was collected through observation, tape recording, and interviews. The dialogues of 35 people were recorded by the researchers as well as the researchers have interviewed with 21 people from different social classes.15 classes and meetings which Kurdish language was the means of communication were observed. The research showed that hedging as a mitigating device is extensively employed in different conversations. The study shows that hedging devices have the same roles  in Kurdish as they have in English. They are used to reduce the certainty and sureness of the utterances. It indicates that some pragmatic devices modify the epistemic strength of the statement in Kurdish language just as they do in English and Arabic.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  

Abstract The world's population is aging rapidly. Globally, the population of older people will nearly double in the next 30 years, from 12% to 22%. Unfortunately, many elderly people are often vulnerable to the development of mental health problems. Besides the development of mental disorders (such as depression) or neurological disorders (such as cognitive impairment), they often experience several health ailments and loss of functionality, which negatively impacts their mental health and wellbeing. The WHO points out that mental health problems among this group of people are under-identified by healthcare professionals and by older people and their relatives themselves, and that stigma surrounding these conditions makes people often reluctant to seek help. Therefore, more scientific research and debate is needed on mental health of older persons, especially from a public health perspective. By bringing together researchers on this domain from different countries and background, this workshop aims to contribute to the scientific insight in this topic and finally to the improvement of the mental health and wellbeing of this growing group of people. In this workshop, research findings on the prevalence of (undetected) mental health problems and the impact of organizational, social and physical conditions on these problems, among older persons, both institutionalized and not, will be presented and discussed by five researchers from different European countries. Dr. Sunwoo Lee (Czech Republic) will talk about the demographic, psychosocial, and health-related risk factors for suicidal ideation among older adults in 12 European countries. Dr. Patricia De Vriendt (Belgium) will give a presentation on the unnoticed mild cognitive problems in nursing homes in Flanders. Dr. Henriette van der Roest (the Netherlands) will show the relationship between organizational adaptions in Dutch nursing homes and cognitive improvement and quality of life among older persons with dementia. Dr. Jutta Lindert (Germany) will focus on the impact of social stress and strain on the episodic memory and executive functioning of the “Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) cohort. And finally Dr. Mauro Carta (Italy) will illustrate the positive effect of moderate physical activity on cognitive functioning and general wellbeing of older people. Key messages Mental health problems among the growing group of older people are prevalent and of different kind. More scientific insight is needed on the prevalence and determinants of these problems, in order to provide timely and adequate support and prevention.


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