Psychology Articles Summaries

The major objective of this study was to evaluate sleep patterns of 400 Iranian men and women, aged 60 years or older, with a view to establish a relationship between their sleep quality and health status (Malakouti 1201). Previous studies had shown that sleep disturbances not only increase with age, but also elevate the use of health services and enhances physical and mental morbidity, functional dysfunction, and all causes of mortality.Advertising We will write a custom report sample on Psychology Articles Summaries specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More To collect the needed primary data, three sets of questionnaires, namely the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), and a General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), were administered to the participants sampled using a rigorous scientific procedure that made use of the National Organization for Retired Persons in Tehran to recruit the elderly participants ( Malakouti 1202-1203). The results reinforced the findings of other previous studies that many elderly people indeed suffer from poor sleep quality, consequently exposing them to a multiplicity of health-related risks and even illnesses. One in every ten participants reported experiencing sleepiness during the daytime due to poor sleep at night, while a sizeable number of participants reported experiencing difficulties falling asleep and maintaining sleep throughout the night. More women reported difficulties falling asleep due to being too hot at night, while more men suffered from leg twitching at night, considerably lowering the quality of sleep (Malakouti 1203-1206). These findings have important ramifications for the elderly as the quality of their sleep is positively correlated with quality of life and health outcomes (Malakouti 1206). Consequently, the authors suggest that promoting sleep hygiene education for the elderly should be recommended to enhance their quality of life and promote their health and wellbeing. Tani, Franca, Alice Bonechi, Carole Peterson Andrea Smorti. â€Å"Parental Influences on Memories of Parents and Friends.† The Journal of Genetic Psychology 171.4 (2010): 300-329. This particular study purposed to explore the premise that parents have an increasingly significant influence not only on their children’s memories of them as significant others but also on their children’s memories of the parents’ close friends.Advertising Looking for report on psychology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Specifically, the researchers enrolled a sample of 198 Italian university students to critically â€Å"†¦evaluate the role that the quality of parent-child relationships has on two different types of memories, those of parents and those of friends (Tani et al. 301). In addition, the researchers purposed to evaluate the role of gender in moderating these relat ionships (Tani et al. 318). Three data collection instruments, namely the Network of Relationships Inventory (NRI), questionnaire on parent and friend memories, and Adolescents Report of Parental Monitoring (ARPM), were used to evaluate the depth of the parent-child relationships (Tani et al. 307-309). The results demonstrated that parent-friend memories, as reported by participants increased in both genders with age, and were predominantly frequent during adolescence. When the affective tone of the memories was evaluated, it was revealed that in both male and female participants, the percentage of negative memories increased from childhood to adolescence, while the proportion of positive memories lessened. Using the same trajectory, the percentage of positive friends’ memories was found to increase while those of negative memories decreased (Tani et al. 318). This study was, therefore instrumental in underlying the importance of encouraging children to socialize more with th eir friends for purposes of identity development and for the provision of other supportive functions that are automatically transferred from parents to friends as individuals grow from childhood into adulthood (Tani et al., 324-327). Garcia-Banda, Gloria, Mateu Servera, Karin Challew, Victoria Meisel, Juana Fornes, Esther Cardo†¦ Ronald M. Doctor. â€Å"Prosocial Personality Traits and Adaptation to Stress.† Social Behavior and Personality 39.10 (2011): 1337-1348. In this study, the authors attempted to examine cortisol responses to public speaking with a view to test the â€Å"†¦hypothesis that reactivity would be positively related to openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and negatively to extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism, respectively† (Garcia-Banda et al. 1338).Advertising We will write a custom report sample on Psychology Articles Summaries specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In part icular, the researchers were interested in comparing salivary cortisol secreted by a sample of participants during a stressful scenario (public speaking) to cortisol secreted by the same sample of participants in a non-stressful scenario to investigate its relationship to the variables mentioned above (Garcia-Banda et al. 1340). Towards the realization of this aim, a sample of 75 participants were recruited into the study and two data-gathering instruments – the NEO Five-Factor Inventory and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised – administered on them (Garcia-Banda et al. 1340-1341). The results reinforced findings of other previous studies that public speaking is associated with enhanced cortisol levels (Garcia-Banda et al. 1341). Perhaps the most important finding of this study is that conscientiousness as one of prosocial personality dimensions was linked to elevated cortisol in the stressed scenario, whereas smaller portions of cortisol responses were found in participants with psychoticism – a personality facet that correlates highly with psychopathy and impairment in stress reactivity (Garcia-Banda et al. 1345). These findings are not only instrumental in assisting us to understand why people with elevated cortisol levels cope better in stressful situations than people with normal or even blunted cortisol secretion, but also in understanding why people demonstrating conscientiousness always have a good self-control disposition and an affective prosocial attitude towards others. Consequently, the study assists us to understand why conscientious individuals enjoy life. Mu, Shou-Kuan. â€Å"The Relationship between Virtues and Personality Traits of Chinese College Students.† Social Behavior and Personality 39.10 (2011): 1379-1386. This particular study purposed â€Å"†¦to investigate the relationship between virtues and the personality traits of college students in mainland China† (Mu 1379). The concept of vir tue is important in contemporary personality theory since it represents the quality of character through which people consistently identify with and do the right thing. A sample of 426 students from two universities located in Eastern China was identified, and two data collection tools, namely the Chinese Virtue Adjectives Rating Scale (CVARS) and The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (Chinese 16PF), administered for purposes of collecting data (Mu 1381). The hypothesis was that personal virtues will be positively correlated with personality characteristics.Advertising Looking for report on psychology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More In detailing the results, the investigator â€Å"†¦found that all factors of the CVARS correlated positively with emotional stability, dominance, liveliness, rule-consciousness, social boldness, abstractedness, and perfectionism of the 16PF, and correlated negatively with sensitivity, vigilance, apprehension, self-reliance, and tension† (Mu 1383). Other second-order factors of the 16PF needed for individuals to develop strong personality traits, such as extraversion, tough-mindedness, and autonomy, also correlated positively with all factors of the CVARS. The results have important ramifications for psychological thought, particularly in the broad area of personality development, as they support the view that the concept of virtue is closely related to personality and, consequently, it can be of great importance to behaviorists in character development (Mu 1384). The study brings us closer to the conclusion made previously by scholars of personality psychology that altho ugh personality and virtue are viewed as separate entities, they are indeed related conceptions. This view is slowly being entrenched in positive psychology. Torgersen, Svenn. â€Å"The Nature (and Nurture) of Personality Disorders.† Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 50.6 (2009): 624-632. Torgersen used a meta-analytic review of published articles to evaluate whether personality disorders are caused by genetic predispositions or environmental factors. The author’s analysis begins by reviewing a number of recently published studies, which suggests that individuals exhibiting personality problems also usually exhibit a life trend of personality challenges that are usually above the average in any given population (Torgersen 626). The author argues that familial transmission of personality disorders is more or less only genetic, stressing that â€Å"†¦the development of antisocial personality disorders is influenced by genes, the heritability being around 0.40, wit h no effect of shared family environment† (Torgersen 627). When it comes to environmental influence, the author observes that while it is indeed true that individuals exhibiting particular personality disorders report various environmental stimuli, such as cold and distant parents, neglect, environmental instability, no parental caring and little control, research is yet to provide conclusive findings on whether these environmental agents are the causes or the consequences of the perceived personality disorders (Torgersen 628). The author argues that if parents mistreat their children and, as a direct consequence, the children develop personality/behavioral problems, it does not essentially imply that the mistreatment is the root cause of the problems. On the contrary, â€Å"†¦the parents themselves [may] have some personality disorder traits, partly due to genes. These genetically influenced traits correlate with poor parenting, explaining the genetic influence on paren ting. The children inherit the genes and subsequently develop personality disorders† (Torgersen 628). To distinguish between genetic and environmental variables to personality problems, therefore, the author suggests that subsequent studies should assume a genetically informed longitudinal approach. Dwairy, Marwan. â€Å"Parental Inconsistency: A Third Cross-Cultural Research on Parenting and Psychological Adjustment of Children.† Journal of Child Family Studies 19.1 (2010): 23-29. Dwairy used a sample of 2,884 participants, comprising of Arab, Indian, French, Polish, and Argentinean adolescents, to evaluate if parental inconsistencies (temporal, situational, and father-mother inconsistency) could indeed influence the adolescents psychological disorders. Temporal inconsistency was described as â€Å"†¦the inconsistency in the parent’s reaction time to the same situation from time to time, situational inconsistency [as] the inconsistency in the parental rea ction from one situation to another, and father-mother inconsistency [as] the inconsistency between the two parents in their reaction to the same situation† (Dwairy 24). Consequently, the author â€Å"†¦hypothesized that parental inconsistencies are dependent on culture, the parents’ gender, and the adolescents’ gender, and are associated with psychological maladjustment of adolescents† (Dwairy 24). Further, it was hypothesized that the stated associations vary across cultures. The results revealed that while parental inconsistency is culturally dependent, it does not seem to be influenced by the adolescent’s gender. The most important finding of the study, however, was that parental inconsistency is evidently correlated to adolescents’ mental health and led to: ambivalent feelings (e.g., adolescents developing negative feelings when parents are controlling and criticize); unpredictable behavior, which not only hurt’s the childâ⠂¬â„¢s feelings but disturbs the child-parent relationship, and; feelings of injustice (Dwairy 24-27). The study also demonstrated that the parents’ temporal inconsistencies and father-mother discrepancy were closely associated with psychopathy across cultures, while father-mother situational discrepancies were not in any way associated with psychopathy (Dwairy 27). Works Cited Dwairy, Marwan. â€Å"Parental Inconsistency: A Third Cross-Cultural Research on Parenting and Psychological Adjustment of Children.† Journal of Child Family Studies 19.1 (2010): 23-29. Garcia-Banda, Gloria, Mateu Servera, Karin Challew, Victoria Meisel, Juana Fornes, Esther Cardo†¦Ronald M. Doctor. â€Å"Prosocial Personality Traits and Adaptation to Stress.† Social Behavior and Personality 39.10 (2011): 1337-1348. Malakouti, Seyed Kazem, Mahshid Foroughan, Marzieh Nojomi, Mir Farhad Ghalabandi Tahar Zandi. â€Å"Sleep Patterns, Sleep Disturbances and Sleepiness in Retired Irania n Elders.† International Journal of Geriatric Psychology 24.2 (2009): 1201-1208. Mu, Shou-Kuan. â€Å"The Relationship between Virtues and Personality Traits of Chinese College Students.† Social Behavior and Personality 39.10 (2011): 1379-1386. Tani, Franca, Alice Bonechi, Carole Peterson Andrea Smorti. â€Å"Parental Influences on Memories of Parents and Friends.† The Journal of Genetic Psychology 171.4 (2010): 300-329. Torgersen, Svenn. â€Å"The Nature (and Nurture) of Personality Disorders.† Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 50.6 (2009): 624-632. This report on Psychology Articles Summaries was written and submitted by user Margaret Lyons to help you with your own studies. 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