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While there is a considerable body of literature on various psychotherapeutic paradigms and their respective models of supervision, there are not many articles reviewing and comparing different supervisory traditions and supervisor–supervisee relationships. However, this comparison is important on both theoretical and practical levels: it is essential to identify features of supervision that are unique to each paradigm and to determine whether there are any universal or common supervision processes prevalent across a variety of paradigms. This literature review aims to provide a clearer understanding of both commonalities and distinctions among various theoretical paradigms (such as psychoanalytic/psychodynamic, cognitive, and existential/humanistic therapies) and their corresponding models of supervision. To accomplish this goal, the paper examines essential aspects of supervisory relationships within each paradigm, focusing on: a) the key features of the supervision process, b) the supervisor’s role and engagement in the supervision, and c) the primary interventions and factors contributing to the effectiveness of supervision. We identify features that are unique and specific to supervisory relationships in each of the paradigms, as well as features that are common to all three traditions. Considering the theoretical underpinnings of each tradition, the paper discusses epistemological assumptions that could determine the effectiveness of supervision in the context of each therapeutic paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Circumplex perspective on (de)motivating teaching styles based on Self-determination theory is presented in this paper. Based on the findings of the research project “Towards the effective teaching: the evaluation of (de) motivating teaching strategies and their effects on students’ using Circumplex model” (funded by the Research Council of Lithuania under the National Research Programme Welfare Society, Grant No. S-GEV-21-2) recommendations on how to nourish students’ motivational resources and well-being are provided for professionals working in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflexivity is a concept that is increasingly gaining prevalence in the literature of professional practice and it has been defined in a variety of ways; however, the differences in definition largerly depend on the context. Therefore, reflexivity development is the main goal of supervision; it is a powerful instrument that can impede the psychotherapist’s connection with his client, but there is no answer on what specifically enhances or decreases reflexivity during the supervision process. In the scientific articles analyzing supervision, there is no clear definition of the phenomenon of reflexivity and there is also a lack of empirical studies of reflexivity in supervision. The aim of this paper is to present our own definition and theoretical model of reflexivity in the psychotherapy supervision process as well as distinguish reflexivity between adjacent concepts like “reflection,” “self-reflection,” and “self-reflexivity.” We carried out a systematic review of literature within three databases and created a theoretical model of reflexivity in psychotherapy supervision. We also discuss the guidelines and methods for further empirical investigations of this phenomenon in psychotherapy supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though the increasing amount of waste is one of the biggest environmental challenges we currently face, surprisingly little is known about the psychological factors of waste prevention behaviour. The purpose of the study is to examine whether students’ waste prevention behaviour can be predicted by the Value-Belief-Norm theory. In this paper, we report results from a questionnaire study of 221 students aged from 18 to 26 years. It was found that the Value-Belief-Norm theory could indeed explain students’ waste prevention behaviour. As expected, findings indicate that a high endorsement of biospheric values is associated with a strong ecological worldview, which was related to an increased awareness of environmental consequences. Those beliefs led to stronger personal norms, which were associated with more frequent waste prevention behaviour. Understanding students’ waste prevention behaviour and the factors predicting it is a key step that could help to reduce the amount of waste that is generated. It is particularly relevant among students, because a higher education environment could be an effective place for increasing pro-environmental behaviour among students and connect this behaviour with their values, beliefs and norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proactive employees are an important part of social capital in modern organizations that operate in a competitive and ever-changing business environment. Proactive behavior (PB) is defined as self-directed and futureoriented actions that are aimed to change the situation, work environment, or oneself (Bindl & Parker, 2010). Proactive workers initiate individual and organizational changes, and they not only respond to work requirements or adapt to environmental conditions (Fritz & Sonnentag, 2009). Therefore, it is important to analyze the work and personal characteristics that may be significant in order to enhance the employees’ PB. The paper presents an empirical study that integrates the theoretical approaches of Proactive Behavior (Parker & Collins, 2010) and Job Demands - Resources (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). It is aimed, first, to examine the links between job demands (pace and amount of work, emotional and mental workload), resources (autonomy and feedback), and work engagement and stress with employee strategic proactive behaviors as well as work and person-environment fit proactive behaviors. Second, to determine the role that work engagement and stress have in the relationships between job characteristics and PB types. A total of 386 employees from various Lithuanian organizations were surveyed online. Sixty one percent of the respondents were female; the average age of the respondents was 34.8 (SD = 11.32) years, with an average of 7.3 (SD = 8.22) years of working experience in their organizations. Twenty one percent of the respondents were first-level managers. Most of the respondents (93.6%) had acquired higher education. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that strategic PB, through engagement as a mediator, was predicted by autonomy, mental workload, and feedback; proactive work behavior was predicted by emotional workload, while mental workload, autonomy, and feedback were related to proactive work behavior through work engagement as a mediator; proactive person-environment fit behavior was predicted only by feedback via work engagement as a mediator. The study has shown that employee PB can be reinforced not only with job resources (autonomy and feedback) but job demands as well (the mental and emotional workload) via the mediative effect of work engagement. Work stress was not related with PB. The practical applications of research findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies researching the relationship between procrastination and self-efficacy produce ambiguous results. According to some researchers, the relationship is positive, according to others - negative, and still others claim that there is no relationship between the two. This suggests that the actual relationship between procrastination and self-efficacy might be moderated by a third variable. In this paper, time management was chosen as a potential candidate for such moderation. Thus the aim of this study is to asses the relationship between self-efficacy, procrastination and time management in an academic environment. The Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students (PASS) was used for measuring the academic procrastination, while the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) was utilised to measure the academic self-efficacy and academic time management. Survey participants consisted of individuals studying at the following universities: Vilnius University, Vilniaus Gedimino Technikos University, Mykolas Romeris University and Lietuvos Edukologijos University. In total, 153 students (88 women, 63 men and 2 unspecified) were surveyed using the paper and pencil method. Participants were selected using the convenience sampling strategy. The average age of participants was 20.2 years (SD = 1.21). The methodology of this study consists of a correlation analysis and a moderation analysis. The results suggest that the relationship between academic procrastination and academic self-efficacy is moderated by the skills of academic time management. Among the students with high time management, the score of increasing self-efficacy corresponded with decreasing procrastination. On the opposite, students with low self-efficacy showed a different trend: with an increase in time management, procrastination was decreasing at first; yet later it began increasing. In general, the level of procrastination is lower when both self-efficacy and time management are high. The sample used in this study was quite homogeneous; therefore, the obtained results should be interpreted with some caution. Future work could be focused on repeating the same study using a more representative sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The act of mentalisation refers to the capacity of understanding oneself and others in terms of intentional mental states (feelings, beliefs, intentions, and desires). Different definitions of this capacity for understanding mental states - such as theory of mind or reflective function - can be found in scientific literature along with subtle differences in conceptualisations of its development. Nevertheless, an increasing interest in interpersonal factors of development in mentalisation can be observed lately. One of the approaches in understanding the development of mentalisation is suggested by Fonagy and colleagues (1991, 2004), according to who the parent-child attachment and parental mentalisation are seen as key factors in the development of a mentalising capacity in children. Of these relationships, the ones in early development are discussed more widely. Much less is known theoretically and empirically about the relationships between parental mentalisation, a child's attachment and mentalisation in middle childhood and adolescence. During these stages of development, important changes take place in the attachment system as well as within behaviors and needs of a child, including a move towards more integrated attachment representations together with socio-cognitive developmental changes related to puberty. It is not clear if parental mentalisation and a child's attachment security remain of the same importance as they are in early childhood to the development and manifestation of child's mentalisation from middle childhood to adolescence. Within this context, the aim of this paper is to analyse and reveal the most important empirical findings related to the research of mentalisation in childhood and adolescence. In this way, we aim to highlight and critically evaluate certain theoretical assumptions about the mentalisation of parents and a child's attachment security as factors of a child's mentalisation development. In this context, the aim of this paper is to analyze and to reveal the most important empirical findings related to the study of mentalisation in childhood and adolescence. An analysis of empirical studies showed that good parental mentalisation is important for attachment security and acquisition of theory of mind in early development. Data also reveals the importance of maternal reflective functioning for the development of organised attachment strategies. Moreover, poor maternal reflective functioning was related with disorganised attachment, which, according to different studies, was related to poorer mentalisation in early and in later development. Even though links between attachment security and mentalisation remain significant in middle childhood and adolescence, research findings indicate different relationships between strategies of attachment and mentalisation. It might be that not the attachment security itself, but the organisation of attachment representations might be an important condition for the development of mentalisation. Research findings show that maternal mentalisation remains important for the mentalisation of a child. On the other hand, there is still a lack of empirical data which could provide an opportunity to explain the mechanisms of how these processes interact in later development. An analysis of existing studies allows us to state that the approach-proposed development of mentalisation proposed by Fonagy and colleagues can partly be transferred to middle childhood and adolescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 19th and 20th centuries were extremely turbulent in Lithuanian history, being at the frontline of the World War I and II, subsequent occupations, mass deportations and other significant historical events. This history is reflected in the development of psychological science in Lithuania. Quite a few studies have been conducted on the development of psychology in Lithuania: general analyses, analysis concerning the joining of psychologists into professional organizations, studies of important personalities, articles concerning institutions or theoretical schools (Kern, 2012). However, there is a lack of studies analyzing the history of scientific psychology. The purpose of the present study was to analyze the development of psychological science in the oldest Lithuanian journal of scientific psychology “Lietuvos TSR aukštųjų mokyklų mokslo darbai. Pedagogika ir psichologija“ (1962-1977) and “Psichologija. Mokslo darbai” (1980-2015) taking into account research designs, types of articles, research topics, kinds of statistical analysis, and the language that the article was written in. A quantitative analysis of 457 articles was performed. The articles were coded for language (Lithuanian, English, Russian), types (an empirical study or not); research topic (cognitive psychology, personality psychology, social psychology, etc.), research design (experimental, correlational, etc.), statistical data analysis (descriptive, inferential or multivariate statistics). The results indicate that up until 1990 about 60-70% of articles were written in Lithuanian and the rest in Russian. From 1990 onward, most articles are still in Lithuanian (80-90%) and the rest in English. The increase of empirical studies begins in 2000-2009. The current percentage of empirical studies (80%) seems adequate when compared to other journals in the discipline. Three main groups of research topics could be distinguished: 1) research topics that have never been popular, for example, psychology of conscious states or biological psychology; 2) research topics that decreased in popularity, for example, cognitive or pedagogical psychology; 3) research topics which, because of ideological repressions, became popular just before the re-establishment of Lithuania’s independence, for example, clinical psychology. The analysis of different time periods also shows that the experimental design has become less prevalent in the studies. However, more studies started using the correlational design. By investigating statistical procedures in empirical papers, it became apparent that the Lithuanian psychological science lagged behind in this respect, probably because of the “Iron curtain” which separated Lithuania from the rest of the world for a long time. In summary, 1990 was the breaking point which brought many changes into the Lithuanian psychological science because of the end of censorship. After the Lithuania’s re-establishment of independence, papers in the journal “Psichologija. Mokslo darbai” are becoming much closer to the world trends of psychological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different sides of the development of psychology as a science, a teaching subject and a professional activity in Lithuania during the 100-year period are analyzed and discussed. This analysis is performed in the context of the institutionalization of the modern Lithuanian State. The three main premises of the development of psychology in Lithuania are revealed: the sociopolitical and economical context of state, the influence of the global field of psychology and the activities of the enthusiasts of profession. The extent of development of psychology in Lituania during the different periods of Lithuanian history of last 100 years of its existance is evaluated according to 10 criteria of recognizing the profession: 1) Social need; 2) State regulation of the profession; 3) Legislative basis of the profession; 4) Trust by society and authority; 5) Control of professional competence; 6) Being included in a classification of scienes and a scientific studies system; 7) Education (teaching and training) of the profession; 8) Professional and scientiffic communication (journals, conferences); 9) Values and professional ethics; 10) Professional self-regulation (professional NGO). The development of psychology in Lithuania can be divided in stages according to the context of the modern state's development events: 1) Before the year 1918 (the period of arousal and enlightenment in psychological culture); 2) The years 1918-1940 (start of the institutionalization of psychology in the First Republic of Lithuania); 3) The years 1940-1944 (an empty, topsyturvy-esque or confused of social and economical life stage during the Second World War); 4) The years 1945-1988 (an unsettled stage of training and researches in psychology with stabilization after when psychologists were begun to be educated at Vilnius University in 1969); 5) The years 1989-2018 (a dissociation from the Russian academic field of psychology and an independent development with the rising ifluence of Western academic psychological influences). The names of the main enthusiasts of the institutionalization of psychology in Lithuania during the five listed stages are presented. The main persons from this list were Alfonsas Gučas (1907-1988), Jonas Vabalas-Gudaitis (1881-1955), Vladas Lazersonas (1889-1945) and Juvencijus Lapė (1925-1911). The main conclusion of paper is that psychology in Lithuania, during the 100-year period, was developed according to all 10 criteria; it was reasonably adapted to the national state culture and infrastructure. In other words, at the present time, we can speak and write not only about the development of psychology in Lithuania but about a Lithuanian psychology - a nationally indigenized profession. Eleven features of indeginized psychology are also listed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We already know that attitude and behaviour are related and can influence each other. Greenwald and Banaji (1995) suggest that attitude can be explicit or implicit. Explicit attitude is conscious and related with such behavior. Implicit attitude is unconscious, automatic and has more relationships with unconscious behaviour. The authors of the mentioned study suggest that neither of them are “real” attitudes, but it is important to recognize both, as they can have different influences on our behaviour. Facebook is the most popular social network around the world, especially across the younger generations. Researchers found that the explicit attitude toward Facebook is very positive (Johnston et al., Mersin, 2013; Acılar & Mersin, 2015), but there are no papers on implicit attitude. So, the purpose of this study was to find out the implicit and explicit attitudes toward using Facebook and to reveal the interrelations between these attitudes and experiences from using Facebook. The study participants consisted of 210 teenagers from a single gymnasium. Their ages were 17 (40%), 18 (50%) and 19 (10%); 41.4% of them represented boys, 58.6% – girls. Implicit attitudes were measured by the Single Attribute Implicit Association Test (SA-IAT), and the explicit attitudes – by a 21-item questionnaire regarding the attitude toward using Facebook (Kokoç & Çiçek, 2011). Results showed that the majority of them have a Facebook account (N=171). Facebook users have more positive explicit attitudes, and this was related to time spent on Facebook and the number of times they connect to the social media network on a daily basis. Also, it was revealed that explicit attitude is the predictor of having an account on Facebook, and that implicit attitude had predicted the opposite. Moreover, implicit attitude does not differ between users and non-users and has no significant relationship with behaviour. However, it was noticed that Facebook users were faster when pairing Facebook with pleasant rather than unpleasant words. Non-users reacted in both test conditions equally. This could mean that users unconciously associate Facebook with pleasant feelings and may share positive implicit attitudes. However, this study has several limitations. Most of the participants were Facebook users, so the differences that were found could be inaccurate. Also, all of them were from the same gymnasium, so different results may possibly be gathered from different school populations. Therefore, the obtained results should be interpreted with caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, there is a growing body of papers on the topic about two-digit (2D) number processing. Separate studies revealed the importance of subjects' age (e. g., Nuerk, Kaufmann et al., 2004) and sex (Pletzer et al., 2013) in a 2D number representation. The aim of this study was to investigate an automatic 2D number processing in people of different age and sex. Methods. 2nd graders (average age 8 years and 5 months), 4th graders (average age 10 years and 5 months), and adults (average age 27 years and 2 months) performed two experimental tasks in which they had to judge the numeric or monetary value of presented stimuli (e. g., which is more, 82 ct or 14 Lt). Results were obtained by totalizing the reaction time and error rate. In statistical analysis, the Vilcoxon criteria were used to distinguish the difference in each participants' group between blocks of different stimuli. In addition, the results were counted for each participant individually. Results. As in previous studies (e. g., Chan et al., 2011), 2nd graders, 4th graders and adults processed 2D numbers automatically. In this study, 2nd graders processed two-digit numbers in a holistic fashion, while 4th graders and adults used a decomposed parallel processing. The 'holistic' 2D number processing in children can be explained as a 'transition' stage between decomposed sequential and decomposed parallel. The 'holistic' result may derive from approximately equal frequency in using sequential and parallel ways of processing. The data did not support the hypothesis that during adulthood, males process two-digit numbers in a different fashion from females. In this study, both sexes processed 2D numbers in the same way (decomposed parallel). In contrast, Pletzer et al. (2013) found the holistic 2D number processing to prevail in males. In this paper, potential influences on this difference are discussed. First, it could be due to different languages, or it could be due to experiment arrangement. The probability of the same participant using different strategies in response to different (simple or more complex) stimuli is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Executive function is a group of the higher-order cognitive abilities that coordinate and monitor other abilities and behavior. As complex cognitive functioning is primarily attributed to adults, executive function in children has rarely been studied. However, research of executive function from the perspective of developmental psychology and psychopathology has become more frequent in recent decade. Several findings have attributed to this change, the discovery of an intriguing connection between children's executive function and theory of mind among them. Several reviews have been published in the field, providing the detailed developmental map of most often studied components of executive function (Garon et al., 2008; Best et al., 2009). However, they touch less on the broader context of executive function development. The aim of this review paper is to discuss the main findings, new trends and unanswered questions associated with developmental research in executive function, hoping this will stimulate Lithuanian psychologists become more involved in the field. We start the first part of the paper by discussing the difficulties in developmental research of executive function associated with the theoretical ambiguity of the construct and methodological problems. Most authors have focused to three main executive functions in recent years: mental set shifting, working memory updating and response inhibition. However, none of the neuropsychological tests measure isolated component of executive function, which makes the interpretation of the findings complicated. Studying executive function in young children at least partly addresses this problem, as the neuropsychological tasks are less complex, so more "pure" in this group. We briefly describe the developmental trends of main executive functions, concluding that the development of these abilities starts as early as the first year of life, undergoes the biggest changes in preschool years and continues till late childhood and even adulthood. We finally outline the importance of studying psychosocial context of the development of executive function. There is evidence that early social interaction may affect the development of executive function (Bibok et al., 2009; Bernier et al., 2010), but much remains to be done to better understand the mechanisms of the development of these functions. The second part of the paper is devoted to the connection between the development of executive function and theory of mind. There are four main proofs of this connection: 1) positive correlation between the executive function and theory of mind test results; 2) matching developmental paths of these two psychic functions; 3) matching brain regions; 4) disorders of both psychic functions in case of psychopathology (autism disorder in particular). Although the connection between executive function and theory of mind development is well documented, little is known about the nature and direction of this connection. The most prominent hypothesis is that executive function development stimulates the emergence of executive function (Carlson et al., 2004; Hughes and Ensor, 2007), but alternative explanations exist. We suggest that the explanations taking into account the social context of the development of both psychic functions should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constant demonstration of violence and aggressive models on television threatens to the safety of the society, as by this a young person's knowledge of the world is perverted and the usage of aggressive behaviour is stimulated. The purpose of the present research was to identify the violence demonstrated on the main Lithuanian TV channels (LRT, LNK, TV3). For data collecting we were using a DVD player, which was programmed to record random 15-minute episodes three times per day on different TV channels on October and November in 2006 and on January, 2007. The total material contained 18 hours of recording. 194 occasions of violence captured were evaluated according to the criteria developed by the authors of this paper. It was looked at the type of the violence demonstrated, the complexion and purpose of the demonstration of the violence, the degree of its gravity and particularity, the final effects of the violence demonstrated, the presented evaluation of the violence and the frequency of violence acts in different channels and programs at different times of the day. Besides the authors of this paper, two independent members from the Board of Experts of the Office of the Inspector of Journalists Ethics were asked to evaluate the violence acts according to developed criteria. The results revealed that the average frequency of broadcasting violence on TV is 10.8 violence acts per hour. The highest frequency of broadcasting violence was on TV3 channel - it makes 16.3 violence acts per hour, while LRT channel had least rate of violence - 6 acts per hour (p ≤ 0.001). Most violence acts (38.1 percent) were recorded from 18.00 to 23.00 h, least (25.8 percent) - from 6.00 to 12.00 h (p ≤ 0.031). In this general complexion of all Lithuanian programs the most frequent is physical violence and both - physical and psychical - types of violence are shown only with a reason to call emotions and viewers attention to television. 46 percent of violent acts were demonstrated without any noticeable ravage to victim and 49 percent there were no clear evaluation of the violent act or aggressor itself. Contrarily, violent behavior was shown to bring positive after-effect to the aggressor. It was also noticed that the biggest number of physical and psychical violence acts occurs in cartoons, which is significantly different from the number of violence acts demonstrated in feature films (p ≤ 0.001) and during the announcements (p ≤ 0.024). As cartoons are aimed at the audience of children of the preschool age and early school age, the conclusion can be drawn that the youngest and the most sensitive group of habitants in our country is under the biggest threat of the violence broadcasted by the Lithuanian television programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The psychological empowerment of employees as the psychological enabling and positive motivational state of individuals at work has been broadly studied in relation with their attitudes towards work and organisations, work behaviour, productivity, reactions to changes or innovations. Employee empowerment is especially important for the organisations with flexible management systems which are based on the principles of employee proactivity, personal responsibility and intrinsic work motivation. The article presents the process of improving the LPEQ - Lithuanian Psychological Empowerment Questionnaire (Tvarijonavičius & Bagdžiūnienė, 2013) and the revised 9-item version of the questionnaire. The first version consisted of fifteen items representing five dimensions of psychological empowerment: meaning, enthusiasm, decision making, autonomy, and trust in competence. However, later studies revealed that a three-dimensions exploratory factor solution is also possible (e.g., Jokubauskaitė & Lazauskaitė-Zabielskė, 2016). The aim of the two studies presented in this paper was to repeatedly evaluate and to specify the structure of the LPEQ and to verify the psychometric indicators of the revised 9-item version of the questionnaire. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of data from the first study sample (740 employees from different Lithuanian organisations) were explored to examine the structure, construct validity and reliability of the questionnaire. The CFA showed substantial support for the three factors‘ solution when the first factor (meaning) consisted of two items from the previous meaning dimension and one item from enthusiasm, the second factor (decision making) included two items from the previous decision making and one from autonomy dimensions and the third factor (trust in competence) remained without changes (χ² = 57.69, df = 24, χ² /df = 2.391, p < 0.001; RMSEA = 0.061; GFI = 0.9674; CFI = 0.939; NFI = 0.953). Measures of validity and internal consistency were additionally analysed on the second study data (658 participants). The results proved the convergent validity of the shortened version of the LPEQ: three dimensions and the total score of empowerment were highly and positively related with similar constructs - intrinsic motivation, engagement, autonomy, occupational self-efficacy, in-role behavior (p < 0.01). Cronbach's α coefficients of the dimensions varied between 0.755 and 0.835. In conclusion, the revised version of the Lithuanian Psychological Empowerment Questionnaire (LPEQ - 9) can be characterised as an instrument with appropriate psychometric properties for use in research and practice. Directions for the future research in the field are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The destructive behaviors in childhood may have many negative consequences not only for children themselves, but also for their closest social environment and for the wider society. Therefore, the behavior difficulties and conduct disorders in childhood are among the most important focuses of the developmental psychopathology research and practice. Introduction of personality dimensions into this area of investigation is one of the latest routes in these studies. Recently, the Five-factor model, also known as the Big-Five, has been considered to be one of the most compelling perspectives on the personality structure in adults and children. The present study examines multiple links among behavior difficulties and personality traits in children. Another important focus of the present study is on investigating the specific constellations of personality traits that are more likely to manifest with respect to certain patterns of behavioral difficulties in middle childhood. Data provided by the mothers of 451 children (age, 6 to 11 years) are analyzed in the paper. Children's behavioral difficulties were measured by the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL6/18). The Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Children (HiPIC, Mervielde & De Fruyt, 1999) was used for evaluating personality traits. Analysis of the links among behavior problems and personality traits revealed that children who scored higher on externalizing difficulties had lower expressions of Benevolence, Conscientiousness, Imagination, and Emotional stability traits. These results are in accordance with the data obtained by other authors in the field. No correlation between Extraversion and Aggressive Behavior and Rule-breaking behavior was found. The positive correlation between the Emotional Instability dimension and the subscales of behavioral difficulties was discovered -- children with higher scores on behavioral difficulties appeared to be more anxious and less self-confident. Four clusters based on personality traits were identified -- adaptive, expressive, moderate, and vulnerable. The current study has indicated that children who do not demonstrate behavioral difficulties are more likely to be characterized by the adaptive personality profile with a higher expression of Benevolence, Conscientiousness, Imagination, and Extraversion and the moderate personality lower expression of Emotional Instability traits as well as by the profile with the expressed Benevolence trait which was labelled as the moderate group. In turn, children with behavioural difficulties, more often than expected by chance, may be characterized by the expressive personality profile with the expressed Extraversion and Imagination traits and by the vulnerable personality profile with a high expression of Extraversion and a low one of Benevolence and Conscientiousness traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans are perhaps the only animal species capable of abstract thinking, creating theories, and understanding themselves. This capability comes with a sort of arrogance - a belief that traits common to humans are completely unique and not like those found in other animals. In this paper, we analyze animal personality research: the concept of animal personality, research methods, and the potential value of animal personality research in developing trait theory. The ability to declare that there, indeed, is such a phenomenon as animal personality depends on what we define as personality. If we say that the core aspects of personality are the subconscious or Self, then we are unable to discuss animal personality. However, if we assume that personality can be described as stable behavior patterns, then, when discussing stable behavior patterns of animals, the use of the term "personality" seems justified. There is an abundance of terms and descriptions not only in human but also in animal personality research: the terms like animal temperament, behavior types or syndromes are all used just to avoid the term "personality". All methods of animal personality research can be classified into two large categories: rating-based and behavior-coding based methods. Both categories of methods are widely used (especially behavior coding), yet there still is a lot of debate regarding their superiority, since both methods have pros and cons. Rating-based methods produce more stable results, have a better inter-rater reliability; however, they are much more susceptible to anthropomorphism. Behavior-codingbased methods, albeit more objective, also have their problems: they are less stable, can encompass only a limited scope of observed behavior, and, amongst other things, they also have ecological validity and sample formation issues. It is reasonable to say that both methods should be used, and studies that apply both of these methods to the same sample are especially valuable. Despite methodological problems, animal personality research can be beneficial in several aspects. Animal personality research can provide us with a better understanding of animal behavior patterns and the evolution of human personality, it can also expand research possibilities (e.g., it is possible to perform breeding studies). However, most research require some sort of a theoretical background to provide guidelines for researchers regarding key points and methods of the study. Personality trait theory (namely the Big Five) seems to be a feasible theoretical basis for animal personality studies; however the research in the field is still in its infancy. The reviewed studies allow us to conclude that animal personality research, be it a relatively unpopular and somewhat controversial field, is still not only very important for the development of personality theories, but also has a practical value. After a significant improvement in research methods and trait theory, we can expect a better understanding of the evolution of human personality; these improvements would also mean a more precise animal selection process, improvements in animal well-being, and similar theoretical and practical benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although learning disability (LD) has a primary impact on academic achievement, its relation to problematic social and emotional life of children and adolescents has been well recognised. In addition, attention has been paid to self-evaluation of schoolchildren with LD; however, the results of studies are contradictory and can be attributed to various factors. This paper seeks to shed light on the association between self-evaluation and perceived social support in adolescents with LD. We used the multidimensional model of Susan Harter (1999) for understanding and measuring the global and domain-specific self-evaluations. The goals of the current study were to assess relations of self-evaluation to the perceived frequency and importance of social support received from various significant sources -- parents, teachers, classmates and close friends in two groups of adolescents, those with LD and their classmates with average academic achievements. The participants were 188 Lithuanian-speaking adolescents from sixth-seventh grades of Vilnius schools, mean age 12.5 years (SD = 0.7). Ninety-five schoolchildren (64 boys and 31 girls) diagnosed as learning-disabled and 93 schoolchildren (58 boys and 35 girls) comprised an age- and sex-matched comparison group from the same schools with average academic achievements. The participants were assessed on Self-Perception Profile for Children (Harter, 1985) and Child and Adolescent Social Support scales (Malecki et al., 2000).The results revealed that the LD group rated themselves worse than average-achieving students on all domain-specific self-evaluations scales: scholastic competence (t = -5.88, p < 0.001), social acceptance (t = -3.08, p < 0.01), behavioural conduct competence (t = -2.36, p < 0.05) and global self-evaluation (t = -2.30, p < 0.05). Both groups equally perceived social support, its frequency and importance. There were significant associations between self-evaluations and the perception of social support in both groups. However, there were more significant relationships in the LD group, the perceived importance of social support being significantly related to various self-evaluations among adolescents with LD only (correlations for the LD group ranged from 0.24 to 0.40). The further ANCOVA analysis revealed that the self-evaluation of adolescents with LD, who perceived social support as unimportant, tended to be lower than the self-evaluations of adolescents without LD who disvalued the importance of social support. Key words: learning disability, social support, self-evaluation, adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse the emotional and behavioral problems of 45 children (31 boys and 14 girls) with bronchial asthma, (BA), aged two to five years. The mothers of the children filled in the CBCL/1½-5 (Child Behavior Checklist), Block Parental Practices questionnaire, the Conflicts and Problem-solving Scales (CPS) and the demographic questionnaire. The results have shown that children with BA have more internal problems as compared with healthy children as well as with general population. Mothers of children with BA practice more of psychological control than do mothers of healthy children. The results suggest that the practice of psychological control is related to greater behavioral problems. The results also show that the use of physical punishment is related to external problems of BA children. In the BA group, the severity of parental conflicts is related to behavioral problems, and the use of physical aggression during the conflicts is related to the use of corporal punishment. The level of education of mothers proved to be an important factor in predicting the psychological adjustment of children with BA. Mothers with a lower education report more internal and external problems of children with BA. It appears also that the a lower education level of mothers is related to the more frequent use of corporal punishment. The regression analysis has proven the level of maternal education to be predictive of 40 % of internal problems, and together with physical aggression during parental conflicts it explains 56 % of data. Physical aggression during parental conflicts seems to be the only predictive factor and explains 33 % of data on external problems. Our results disclose the importance of psychosocial factors -- the type and level of parental conflicts as the well as prevalence of psychological control --. in the adjustment of children with BA. These factors can be sources of BA-inducing stress. Our results have shown the level of mother's education to be one of the strongest predictors of internal problems of a child with BA. An important direction of future research could be elucidation of this factor--presumably looking for hindrances in the mother--child relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quite numerous research findings show that social information processing underlies different forms of prosocial and antisocial behaviour. Although most of data come from research of children of different age, interest in social information processing and behaviour in later periods of life markedly grows. More and more authors turn to the question of adult social information processing and antisocial behaviour, considering it as a promising field for criminal behaviour forecast and correction. Two aims of this paper are: 1) to describe the main developmental features of social information processing from early childhood to late adolescence and early adulthood; 2) to make assumptions on the connections between social information processing and the antisocial (criminal) behaviour of adults. In this article, we review findings of more than two last decades as it is the most intense period for the development of knowledge in this field. Analysis of the literature shows that patterns of social information processing of people with tendencies to prosocial and antisocial behaviour already differ in groups of children. These differences become more vivid in groups of adolescents as they tend to use antisocial thinking strategies more often and in more steps of information processing than younger children. We suppose that adults have similar but even more clear and vivid patterns of specific social information processing and behaviour than adolescents. Social knowledge of adults is more complex, abstract and differentiated to specific social situations in comparison with people of younger age. Moreover, their information processing is more rapid and complex as well as more tendentious and rigid. Automation of information processing might suspend the learning process and be a source of information processing mistakes in new social situations. We assume that adults, in comparison with children, must have a rather stable and effectively working social information processing directly linked to specific forms of prosocial or antisocial behaviour. We hypothesize that because of a longer antisocial (criminal) experience, some specific features of social knowledge and information processing might appear. Therefore, researches of social information processing that underlie specific forms of antisocial (criminal) behaviour seem to be most informative and useful in this field. Moreover, it is still very little known about the role of emotions in antisocial behaviour genesis. There is some eloquent data on their important impact on social information processing underlying antisocial behaviour, but we suppose that this impact might differ in particular stages of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to assess what potential traumatic life-events and experiences are related to PTSD in the Lithuanian Afghanistan war veterans (N= 174). Data in this study were collected from a questionnaire survey with a sample of 268 Lithuanian men aged 32 to 52, who were on military duty (compulsory military service) in the Soviet army in 1979-1989. Four regions (capital cities, cities, small cities, and countryside), with the sample allocation proportionate to the distribution of Lithuanian population, geographically stratified the sample; 174 men served in Afghanistan during the Soviet Union -- Afghanistan war. They were divided into two groups according to the manifestation of posttraumatic stress disorder. One group consists of 108 men without PTSD and 46 men with PTSD and sub-clinical level of PTSD (25 and 21 respectively). The following variables were investigated: demographics, traumatic life-events or conditions, PTSD and sub-clinical level of PTSD (Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (Mollica et al., 1992)). The Lithuanian Afghanistan war veterans with PTSD and sub-clinical level of PTSD reported significantly more lifetime traumatic events and conditions. The average number of traumatic events per man with PTSD and sub-clinical level of PTSD was 12.4 and 10 for those without PTSD (F= 1.58, df =152, p < 0.05). The average number of direct exposure events per Lithuanian Afghanistan war veteran with PTSD and sub-clinical level of PTSD was 8 and 6 for veterans without PTSD (F = 10.2, df = 152, p < 0.002). There was a significant correlation between PTSD and the amount of direct exposure and particular traumatic experience: neglect in childhood, loss of a family member, mental illness in the family, absence of parents, violent assault, persecution, and struggle for existence. The Lithuanian Afghanistan war veterans with PTSD and without PTSD had a very similar experience of military operations and combats and the duration of their service didn't differ. Afghanistan war veterans with PTSD and sub-clinical level of PTSD experienced more traumatic life-events and conditions than did veterans without PTSD, Veterans with PTSD and a sub-clinical level of PTSD, more often than veterans without PTSD, experienced traumatic exposure related to the family, violent assault and struggle for existence. Mental illness in the family, loss of a family member and violent assault were predictive of PTSD and sub-clinical level of PTSD in the Lithuanian Afghanistan war veterans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper -- analysis of associations of emotional and behavioral problems of referred and non-referred children with family socio-demographic variables. For this purpose, we used data from clinical sample (N = 780) that consists from children placed for treatment to child psychiatry centers and mental health centers, and data from representative sample (referred children are excluded) (N = 3191). Worldwide known ASEBA instruments CBCL6/18 and YSR 11/18 were applied in this research to evaluate children' emotional and behavioral problems, also a questionnaire to collect data on socio-demographic variables about child and his family. We made comprehensive analysis of social, demographic, economic variables in relation to emotional and behavioral problems assessed by CBCL and YSR, also comparison between clinical and representative groups were made. Results show that gender was important variable influencing level of internal and external problems both in clinical and representative samples. Age was more important determinant in representative group. Children from incomplete families showed higher levels of emotional and behavioral disturbances (particularly, external). Children from clinical sample from incomplete families more often were receiving in-patient treatment rather than outpatient treatment. Better educational background (especially that of mothers) was important social factor determining lower levels of psychological problems in both clinical and representative samples. Family SES (income per person) negatively correlated with most CBCL and YSR scales scores, although there were no significant relations with Somatic Complaints and Rule Breaking Behavior scales. Prognostic power of socio-economic, demographic variables to predict child behavioral and emotional problems was assessed. In addition, revised norms for CBCL6/18, TRF6/18 and YSR11/18 are enclosed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]