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Purpose:Narratives of personal experiences emerge early in language acquisition and are particularly commonly experienced in children’s daily lives. To produce these stories, children need to develop narrative, linguistic, and social-cognitive skills. Research has shown that these skills are impaired in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and high functioning autism (HFA).Aim:This study aimed to determine whether narrative skills are still impaired in adolescence and to highlight the language similarities and differences between teenagers with DLD and HFA in the production of a narrative of a personal experience.Method:Ten teenagers with DLD, 10 teenagers with HFA and 10 typically developing (TD) teenagers, matched on chronological age, told a narrative of a personal experience. These stories were analyzed to evaluate narrative skills through coherence (respect of the narrative schema) and cohesion (anaphora and connectors) and social-cognitive skills (affective and cognitive mental states of the characters, and arbitrary vocalizations such as voice noises).Results:Teenagers with DLD were less compliant with the complication step in the narrative schema than teenagers with HFA or TD. No difference was observed between the three groups of teenagers in terms of cohesion or regarding the positive and negative social-cognitive skills used in narratives.Conclusion:When producing a narrative of a personal experience, HFA teens do not have difficulties neither with narrative skills and with social-cognitive skills assessed in this paper. In DLD the profile of the teens is not the same: They do not have difficulties with social-cognitive skills and with a part of narrative skills (cohesion), and they have difficulties with the narrative schema.

Emotional and social competencies have been shown to be extremely desirable in young people for their successful entry into the labor market. Their development has been studied primarily as a result of formal training in the educational and work domains, whereas relatively little is known about the role played by extracurricular activities in promoting these types of competencies. Non-working personal experiences are often used as proxies to assess the emotional and social competencies of candidates in recruitment and selection phases. However, this inference is not based on clear scientific evidence. Drawing on experiential learning theory, this study investigated empirically the relationship between a range of extracurricular activities (volunteering, cultural activities, experience abroad, sport) and the competency portfolio of graduates. Data were collected from a sample of 324 graduates through a structured survey and a multi-rater assessment of their emotional and social competencies. The results of the Partial Least Square-Path Modeling in general provide support for the positive association between experiential extracurricular activities and emotional and social competencies, although not all relationships are supported. The present study contributes to advance in the understanding of the determinants of emotional and social competencies by examining their relationship with a broad range of extracurricular activities. Moreover, it discusses implications for higher education and human resource management.

Generalized trust, the belief that most other people can be trusted, has positive consequences for health and wellbeing. An increased sense of community is often seen in times of crisis or disaster, but it is unclear whether this is the case in the COVID-19 pandemic. The objectives of the current study were to assess whether generalized trust increased in an early pandemic phase compared to pre-pandemic levels, and whether trust was lower in individuals who felt particularly threatened or burdened in the pandemic. We compared levels of generalized trust in a population-representative Norwegian sample (n = 1,041) with pre-pandemic levels from the European Social Survey (ESS). Age- and gender-adjusted expected scores were compared to observed scores, using weighted data. Secondly, we tested whether indicators of pandemic-related strain, perceived health risks, or pandemic-related worry were associated with a lower level of generalized trust. This cross-sectional study was conducted in an early opening-up phase (May, 2020). The observed levels of generalized trust in an early pandemic phase did not differ significantly from expected levels based on pre-pandemic measures. Higher trust was found among individuals who reported personal experience with the COVID-19 disease (tested positive, admitted to hospital, or lost someone to the disease). Pandemic-related worry and a high perceived health threat were both associated with a lower level of generalized trust. These results indicate that personal experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic could influence trust in others, although this link may be context-dependent. Generalized trust is considered to be an important asset in society, and promote health and well-being. As the pandemic evolves, there is a risk that we may lose, or a chance that we could gain, trust, with potential consequences for our health.

There is no doubt that the use of Internet for purchasing products and services has constituted a crucial change in how people go about buying them. In the era of digital transformation, the possibility of accessing information provided by other users about their personal experiences has taken on more weight in the selection and buying processes. On these lines, traditional word-of-mouth (WOM) has given way to electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), which constitutes a major social change. This behavior is particularly relevant in the services area, where potential users cannot in advance assess what is on offer. There is an abundant literature analyzing the effects of eWOM on different variables of interest in this sector. However, little is known about the factors that determine eWOM. Thus, the main objective of the present paper is to analyze the impact of two variables (objective quality and perceived quality) on eWOM. Both of them are crucial for potential customers in the process of finding hotel accommodations and they can motivate people to make such comments. The results demonstrate that these variables truly have a significant impact on whether or not users make comments on line. Moreover, it proved possible to observe certain differences according to the profile of the tourist involved and the destination where the hotel is located. In the current changing environment, this information is of great use for hotel managers in order to design strategies according to the type of guest they wish to attract.

BackgroundSleep is a strong predictor of quality of life and has been related to cognitive and behavioral functioning. However, research has shown that most autistic people experience sleep problems throughout their life. The most common sleep problems include sleep onset delay, frequent night-time wakings and shorter total sleep time. Despite the importance of sleep on many domains, it is still unclear from first-hand accounts what helps autistic people to sleep. The purpose of this study is to explore together with autistic adolescents their sleep-related practices before bedtime and during the day which contribute to a good night’s sleep.MethodsFifty-four autistic adolescents collaborated with an academic researcher in a novel adapted photo-elicitation methodology, rooted in a Lifeworld framework. The adolescents were invited to collect and analyze their data. The data were also presented in a community knowledge exchange event.ResultsSeveral self-reported practices that facilitate better nocturnal sleep were identified. Those were organized into two thematics: Evening/bedtime factors and Day time factors. These included practices such as personalized sensory and relaxation tools before bed and during night-time, engaging in a range of physical activities during daytime and accommodating personal time to engage with highly preferred and intense focus activities and hobbies. It also included spending time in predictable and fun ways with family members before bedtime.ConclusionThis is the first time that a study uses a novel methodological approach based on personal accounts elicited by photos rooted in a Lifeworld framework to describe personal sleep-related practices before bedtime and during the day to identify a “good night of sleep” in autistic adolescents. The outcomes from the current study showed that sleep facilitating factors are in a direct contrast to the sleep hygiene recommendations. Therefore, it is thus important for the sleep practitioners and healthcare providers to move beyond providing standardized sleep hygiene interventions. A Lifeworld led care model that pays attention to personal experiences, promotes sense of agency, evaluates both autism-specific strengths and struggles could and should complement biomedical approaches.Lay SummaryThis is the first study to examine autistic adolescents’ self-reported sleep habits and factors which facilitate autistic adolescents’ sleep by employing adapted photo-elicitation interviews. This study is innovative in at least three ways. First, it examines the factors that may facilitate a good night’s sleep through personal accounts of autistic adolescents. Second, this is the first sleep study to adopt a collaborative, flexible approach to understanding positive sleep factors in the lives of autistic adolescents. This study employed a personalized approach into collecting, categorizing, coding, and analyzing qualitative data allowing autistic adolescents and the researcher to work together across key stages of data collection and data analysis. Third, we adopted a theoretical framework that allows us to consider autistic adolescents in both agency and vulnerability positions when it comes to their sleep difficulties. Our results highlight that sleep should be treated individually and in relation to the environmental and personal factors that affect each autistic person. Hence, researchers and professionals may benefit from working collaboratively with autistic adolescents with the aim to identify individual strengths and adopt a positive narrative around sleep. Furthermore, it is important to further examine both the daytime and evening factors that may affect bedtime and the quality and quantity of sleep as well as the role of intense focused interests and physical activities that cultivate positive feelings and help autistic people to relax before bedtime.

Greater mobility in human societies has resulted in more interactions and contact with immigrants. In the current research, we investigated how viewing the world as flexible, changing, and paradoxical (i.e., naïve dialecticism and an incremental theory) may predict one’s authoritarian beliefs and in turn predict one’s attitudes toward immigrants. To test the generalizability of our findings, we recruit comparable samples (i.e., college students) from two societies that are largely different (Russia and Taiwan). Great cultural similarities were observed. Naïve dialecticism and an incremental theory appeared as two distinctive constructs. People who were higher on naïve dialecticism and an incremental over entity theory had lower support for authoritarian beliefs (i.e., right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation) and, in turn, had more favorable attitudes toward immigrants. Some cultural differences were also observed. Taiwanese participants’ negative attitudes toward immigrants were entirely ideology-based, whereas Russian participants’ negative attitudes toward immigrants were partly based on presumably personal experiences. Pan-cultural and culturally specific mechanisms in predicting attitudes toward immigrants were further discussed and explored.

A wealth of evidence has indicated that both students and teachers experience high levels of stress, burnout, and ultimately compromised well-being in the university context. However, although numerous studies have investigated well-being among university students, and some studies have addressed well-being among university teachers, these lines of research are often conducted in isolation from one another. This is surprising, as the importance of considering reciprocal links between students and teachers has been suggested in numerous empirical studies. Additionally, when researching well-being in academia, conceptualizations of well-being differ from study-to-study. The present research therefore investigated how students and teachers conceptualize well-being at the university based on their personal experiences, as well as how student and teacher well-being interact. To examine this, six university students (50% female), and ten teachers (50% female) from Germany and the Netherlands participated in semi-structured interviews. Qualitative analysis using a multistage coding process revealed detailed insights concerning students’ and teachers’ perceptions of well-being that coincided with positive psychology, resilience, multifaceted, and basic psychological need fulfillment approaches. Moreover, an interaction between students’ and teachers’ well-being became apparent, including several factors such as the student-teacher relationship, that contributed to both population’s well-being. The present findings lend evidence towards a more coherent conceptualization of well-being for further research and are discussed in terms of suggestions for initiatives that simultaneously support both populations, for example, through the student-teacher relationship.

Mindreading is contingent upon interpersonal context. Little is known about how competitive contexts influence mindreading skills. The idea was that the capacity to think about mental states would decline when individuals experiencing failure in competition. This study aims to assess effects of a competitive experience (a computer competitive PC game) on a sample of healthy subjects (119 participants). The sample was divided into two sub-samples. The experimental group underwent an experience of failure, consisting in a PC game of logic against a hypothetical opponent. The control group was required instead only to discuss past personal experiences of competitive interactions. The Metacognitive Assessment Interview was administered to each sub-sample for evaluating mindreading capacities. Self-report tests were additionally provided for evaluation of trait-based dispositions: self-esteem, perfectionism, narcissism. Results supported our hypothesis: induction of sense of failure compromises ability to describe one's own mental states and mental states of others. This effect was more pronounced in the domain of self-reflection. Results remained significant after controlling for self-esteem, perfectionism, and narcissism. We discuss possible clinical implications of these findings and the importance of evaluating mindreading capacities under the pressure of social rank as well as of other social motive.

Clients who seek psychotherapeutic treatment have had personal experiences involving some form of distress. Although research has shown that the client's ability to experience and express painful emotions during therapy can have a therapeutic benefit, it has also been argued that displaying distress may convey a form of helplessness and vulnerability, and thus, clients may be reluctant to cast themselves in this light. Using the methods of conversation analysis, this paper explores how a client's upsetting experience is managed over the course of a single session of client-centered therapy. The main analytic focus will be on (1) the different therapist practices used to orient to the client's distress, (2) the varying forms of client opposition to the therapist's attempts to work with the distress, and (3) the context sensitivity of orienting to distress and how certain practices may be uniquely shaped by what had occurred in prior talk. It was found that, whereas certain types of therapist responses tended to be endorsed by the client, others were forcefully rejected as inappropriate displays of understanding or empathy. By focusing on repeated sequential episodes over time in which a client conveys distress, followed by the therapist's response, this paper sheds light on the interactional trajectory through which a client and therapist are able to resolve impasses to emotional exploration and to successfully secure extended and intense emotional work.

Using an enactive approach to trail runners’ activity, this study sought to identify and characterize runners’ phenomenological gestalts, which are forms of experience that synthesize the heterogeneous sensorimotor, cognitive and emotional information that emerges in race situations. By an in-depth examination of their meaningful experiences, we were able to highlight the different typologies of interactions between bodily processes (e.g., sensations and pains), behaviors (e.g., actions and strategies), and environment (e.g., meteorological conditions and route profile). Ten non-professional runners who ran an ultra-trail running race (330 km, 24,000 m of elevation gain) volunteered to participate in the study. Data were collected in two steps: (1) collection of past activity traces (i.e., race maps, field notes, and self-assessment scales) and (2) enactive interviews using the past activity traces in which the runners were invited to relive their experience and describe their activity. The enactive interviews were coded using the course-of-experience methodology to identify the phenomenological gestalts that emerged from activity and scaffolded the runners’ courses of experience. The results revealed that runners typically enact three phenomenological gestalts: controlling global ease, enduring general fatigue and experiencing difficult situations, and feeling freedom in the running pace. These phenomenological gestalts were made up of specific behaviors, involvements, and meaningful situated elements that portrayed various ways of achieving an ultra-endurance performance in the race situation. They also highlighted how runners enact a meaningful world by acting in relation to the fluctuations in physical sensations and environmental conditions during an ultra-trail race. Practical applications for preparation, race management and sports psychology interventions are proposed to enrich the existing recommendations. In conclusion, this approach provides new research perspectives by offering a more holistic grasp of activity in trail running through an in-depth analysis of athletes’ experience. In doing so, we may expect that runners can connect these typical gestalts to their own personal experiences and stories as trail runners in order to sustain a viable approach to their sport.

In this paper, we attempt to predict and explain psychological maladjustment or difficulty. Specifically, we discuss the concept of perceived chronic social adversity, and we expect that such perceived chronic social adversity may potentially lead to chronic stress responses. Accordingly, we propose the symptomatic reactions of perceived chronic social adversity. We put forward a set of hypotheses regarding the relationships between perceived chronic social adversity and those chronic stress responses, and we further hypothesize a mediating role of individualized negative essentialism brought by perceived chronical social adversity. Resilience and individual differences in the ability to cope with perceived adversity are discussed. Future research and prevention need to pay more attention to effects of subjective personal experiences on psychological difficulty, focusing on the importance of exploring daily social experiences in improving cognitive construction processes and developing appropriate preventions.

The goal of this study was to develop a measure that assesses negative daily social encounters. Specifically, we examined the concept of perceived chronic social adversity and its assessment, the Perceived Chronic Social Adversity Questionnaire (PCSAQ). The PCSAQ focused on the subjective processing of daily social experiences. Psychometric properties were examined within two non-clinical samples (N = 331 and N = 390) and one clinical sample (N = 86). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a three-factor model of the PCSAQ, which corresponds to three types of daily social stressors. The final 28-item PCSAQ was shown to be internally consistent, and to have good construct validity in terms of factor structure and group differences. It was also shown to have good concurrent validity in terms of association with outcome variables (sense of control, happiness, and mood and anxiety symptoms). Perceived chronic social adversity was also shown to be correlated with PTSD severity. Taken together, these findings suggest that the PCSAQ is a reliable, valid, and useful measure that can be used to assess negative social and clinical aspects of personal experiences. This study is an important exploratory step in improving our understanding of the relationship between the cumulative effect of negative social encounters and psychological difficulty.

Autobiographical memory forms a network of memories about personal experiences that defines and supports well-being and effective functioning of the self in various ways. During the last three decades, there have been two characteristics of autobiographical memory that have received special interest regarding their role in psychological well-being and psychopathology, namely memory specificity and memory coherence. Memory specificity refers to the extent to which retrieved autobiographical memories are specific (i.e., memories about a particular experience that happened on a particular day). Difficulty retrieving specific memories interferes with effective functioning of the self and is related to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Memory coherence refers to the narrative expression of the overall structure of autobiographical memories. It has likewise been related to psychological well-being and the occurrence of psychopathology. Research on memory specificity and memory coherence has developed as two largely independent research domains, even though they show much overlap. This raises some important theoretical questions. How do these two characteristics of autobiographical memory relate to each other, both theoretically and empirically? Additionally, how can the integration of these two facilitate our understanding of the importance of autobiographical memory for the self? In this article, we give a critical overview of memory specificity and memory coherence and their relation to the self. We link both features of autobiographical memory by describing some important similarities and by formulating hypotheses about how they might relate to each other. By situating both memory specificity and memory coherence within Conway and Pleydell-Pearce’s Self-Memory System, we make a first attempt at a theoretical integration. Finally, we suggest some new and exciting research possibilities and explain how both research fields could benefit from integration in future research. ispartof: Frontiers in Psychology vol:8 issue:DEC ispartof: location:Switzerland status: Published online

Employees often draw meaning from personal experiences and contributions in their work, particularly when engaging in organizational activities that align with their personal identity or values. However, recent empirical findings have demonstrated how meaningful work can also have a negative effect on employee’s well-being as employees feel so invested in their work, they push themselves beyond their limits resulting in strain and susceptibility to burnout. We develop a framework to understand this “double edged” role of meaningful work by drawing from ideological psychological contracts (iPCs), which are characterized by employees and their employer who are working to contribute to a shared ideology or set of values. Limited iPC research has demonstrated employees may actually work harder in response to an iPC breach. In light of these counterintuitive findings, we propose the following conceptual model to theoretically connect our understanding of iPCs, perceptions of breach, increases in work effort, and the potential “dark side” of repeated occurrences of iPC breach. We argue that time plays a central role in the unfolding process of employees’ reactions to iPC breach over time. Further, we propose how perceptions of iPC breach relate to strain and, eventually, burnout. This model contributes to our understanding of the role of time in iPC development and maintenance, expands our exploration of ideology in the PC literature, and provides a framework to understanding why certain occupations are more susceptible to instances of strain and burnout. This framework has the potential to guide future employment interventions in ideology-infused organizations to help mitigate negative employee outcomes.

Cancer is a debilitating illness that affects more than one in every three Americans at sometime in their life time regardless of their social, cultural, ethnic, religious, or economic status. A few studies in the psychotherapy literature have investigated the impact of cancer on the personal and professional lives of psychotherapists. However, such investigations are yet unknown in medical or music therapy literature. In this descriptive phenomenological study, the researcher interviewed five American music therapists who have survived cancer and also work with patients in medical hospitals or hospice settings. The purpose of this study was to fully describe their lived experience of surviving cancer and examine how the cancer experience affected their clinical work thereafter. The data was analyzed using an open coding method from grounded theory which identified four major themes: (a) personal significance; (b) relational significance; (c) musical significance and (d) professional significance. The descriptions provided by these participants of their cancer experience as patients, survivors, and cancer surviving therapists, have revealed various psychosocial and physical issues encountered, and numerous coping methods they employed, and poignantly explained how their clinical approach evolved and expanded due to the personal experience of cancer. Specific issues in relation to countertransference, self-disclosure, and ways of developing empathic approaches without having such personal experience were discussed in addition to suggestions for future research.

Mental time travel refers to the ability to recall past events and to imagine possible future events. Schizophrenia patients have problems in remembering specific personal experiences in the past and imagining what will happen in the future. This study aimed to examine episodic past and future thinking in schizophrenia spectrum disorders including schizophrenia patients and individuals with schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) proneness who are at risk for developing schizophrenia. Thirty-two schizophrenia patients, 30 SPD proneness individuals, and 33 healthy controls participated in the study. The Sentence Completion for Events from the Past Test (SCEPT) and the Sentence Completion for Events in the Future Test (SCEFT) were used to measure past and future thinking abilities. Results showed that schizophrenia patients showed significantly reduced specificity in recalling past and imagining future events, they generated less proportion of specific and extended events compared to healthy controls. SPD proneness individuals only generated less extended events compared to healthy controls. The reduced specificity was mainly manifested in imagining future events. Both schizophrenia patients and SPD proneness individuals generated less positive events than controls. These results suggest that mental time travel impairments in schizophrenia spectrum disorders and have implications for understanding their cognitive and emotional deficits.

Reasoning may help solving problems and understanding personal experiences. Ruminative reasoning, however, is inconclusive, repetitive, and usually regards negative thoughts. We asked how reasoning as manifested in oral autobiographical narratives might differ when it is ruminative versus when it is adaptive by comparing two constructs from the fields of psychotherapy research and narrative research that are potentially beneficial: innovative moments (IMs) and autobiographical reasoning (AR). IMs captures statements in that elaborate on changes regarding an earlier personal previous problem of the narrator, and AR capture the connecting of past events with other parts of the narrator’s life or enduring aspects of the narrator. A total ofN= 94 university students had been selected from 492 students to differ maximally on trait rumination and trait adaptive reflection, and were grouped as ruminators (N= 38), reflectors (N= 37), and a group with little ruminative and reflective tendencies (“unconcerned,”N= 19). Participants narrated three negative personal experiences (disappointing oneself, harming someone, and being rejected) and two self-related experiences of more mixed valence (turning point and lesson learnt). Reflectors used more IMs and more negative than positive autobiographical arguments (AAs), but not more overall AAs than ruminators. Group differences were not moderated by the valence of memories, and groups did not differ in the positive effect of narrating on mood. Trait depression/anxiety was predicted negatively by IMs and positively by AAs. Thus, IMs are typical for reflectors but not ruminators, whereas the construct of AR appears to capture reasoning processes irrespective of their ruminative versus adaptive uses.

Student sex work is a current phenomenon all over the world, increasingly reported by the media in recent years. However, student sex work remains under-researched in Germany and is lacking direct first-hand reports from the people involved. Further, sex work remains stigmatized, and therefore, students practicing it could be at risk of social isolation and emotional or physical danger. Therefore, this study examines students working in the sex industry focusing on their personal experiences and attitudes toward them. An online questionnaire was completed by 4386 students from Berlin universities. Students who identified themselves as sex workers (n = 227) were questioned with respect to their motivations to enter the sex industry, characteristics of their job, feelings after the intercourse, and perceived risks. Student non-sex workers (n = 2998) were questioned regarding knowledge of and attitudes toward student sex workers. Most student sex workers reported that they entered the sex industry due to financial reasons (35.7%). The majority reported offering services involving direct sexual intercourse. Disclosing their job to friends, family, or others was associated with less problems with social isolation and in romantic relationships. With a total of 22.9%, student non-sex workers reported never having heard about students working in the sex industry. The most frequent emotions mentioned by them with regard to student sex workers were compassion and dismay (48.9%). There was no difference in happiness between student sex workers and non-sex working students. Through this research, it becomes evident that there are similarities between the student’s motivations to enter the sex industry, their feelings, and the problems they have to face. Moreover, prejudices still prevail about the life of student sex workers. Increasing understanding of student sex work might help those sex workers to live a less stigmatized life and thereby to make use of support from others. The universities as institutions could form the basis for this, e.g., by openly supporting student sex workers. This could help to encourage the rights of student sex workers and to gain perspective with respect to the sex industry.