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Measurement of adolescent life satisfaction across cultures has not received much attention in previous empirical research. The present study evaluated measurement invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) among adolescents in 24 countries and regions (N = 22,710; age range = 13–19 years; 53% female). A single-factor model with residual covariance between a pair of items tapping past life satisfaction fitted well in 19 countries and regions and showed a partial metric invariance. In a subset of nine countries and regions, partial scalar invariance was supported. Partial metric invariance across all 24 countries and regions was achieved when custom model modifications in five countries and regions were included. Three SWLS items showed evidence of noninvariance across cultures. The measurement model was found to operate similarly across gender and age. Our findings suggest that caution is needed when using the SWLS for measuring life satisfaction among adolescents from different cultures. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11482-021-10024-w.

The current study investigated the motives that underlie support for COVID-19 preventive behaviorsin a large, cross-cultural sample of 12,758 individuals from 34 countries. We hypothesized that the associations of empathic prosocial concern and fear of disease, with support towards preventive COVID-19 behaviors would be moderated by the individual-level and country-level trust in the government. Results suggest that the association between fear of disease and support for COVID-19 preventive behaviors was strongest when trust in the government was weak (both at individual and country-level). Conversely, the association with empathic prosocial concern was strongest when trust was high, but this moderation was only found at individual-level scores of governmental trust. We discuss how both fear and empathy motivations to support preventive COVID-19 behaviors may be shaped by socio-cultural context, and outline how the present findings may contribute to a better understanding of collective action during global crises.

This chapter presents an overview of the current situation of Roma ethnic minority groups. The authors provide a brief historical outline as well as a summary of major sociodemographic, cultural, and contextual characteristics of Roma. They compare these characteristics across different countries hosting Roma populations and discuss their potential importance for children and youth within broader social and cultural contexts. Drawing on currently available empirical work with these populations, the authors address the question of whether traditional developmental frameworks can apply to oppressed minority settings. They also examine how unique cultural-specific and universal features of Roma can inform the understanding of optimal adaptation in adolescence. The authors conclude by emphasizing the relevance of recognizing that oppressed minority groups such as Roma have potentials and strengths on which we need to build, rather than assume that their communities are only characterized by adversity and deficits.

This chapter applies the 5Cs model of PYD comprising competence, confidence, character, connection and caring among 1403 youth (M = 18.91 years) in Bulgaria (n = 196), Italy (n = 354), Norway (n = 564) and Romania (n = 289). These countries offer a novel and unique context to apply PYD as related comparative work with youth samples is rare across Eastern (Bulgaria and Romania), Southern (Italy) and Northern Europe (Norway). Further, Bulgaria and Romania are emerging nations following the collapse of the communism in late 1980s in contrast to Italy being a traditionally patriarchal country and social equity driven Norway. The chapter presents an empirical example that evaluates the factorial structure and measurement invariance (i.e., the degree to which the scale measurements conducted across different populations exhibit similar psychometric properties) of the 5Cs model. The results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the 5Cs as well as a second-order 5Cs of PYD factors, suggesting that the 5Cs model is a reliable and valid measurement tool in the four European countries investigated. The chapter concludes with an exploration of relevant implications for research, policy, and practice.

Following Snir and Harpaz’s (2012) model of Heavy Work Investment (HWI), we propose a model that clarifies the relationship of antecedents of HWI to burnout. The model consists of several components: (a) external/situational antecedents, ‘income’ and ‘workload’ and internal/dispositional antecedents, ‘job engagement’ and ‘workaholism’; (b) a mediator variable, HWI (divided into ‘time’ and ‘effort’); and (c) ‘burnout’ as the outcome variable. Data was obtained by social science students who surveyed 388 Romanian employees, ages 19 to 66, on two consecutive occasions with a six-week interval (times T1 and T2). Using structural equation modelling, the mediation has an excellent fit at both T1 and T2. The mediation role of HWI is confirmed for T2, with respect to three factors – job engagement, workaholism and workload – but not for T1. The findings are discussed, as are their contribution to the theoretical literature and new directions for further research and organizational practice.

Prior research in Western contexts has pointed to the benefits of supporting employees in the use of their personal strengths at work. This manuscript aims to investigate the invariance of the relationship between employees’ perceived organizational support for the use of their strengths and their well-being (work engagement, burnout, and satisfaction with life) across countries. To this end, we collected a cross-sectional sample of n = 1894 working individuals from five different countries (Germany, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Romania, and South Africa). The results of multigroup path analysis indicated that the relationshipsbetween support for the use of their strengths at work and the three indicators of well-being did not differ across the five countries. Perceived support for the use of strengths displayed a significant positive relationship with work engagement and satisfaction with life and a significant negative relationship with burnout. Consequently, our findings provide initial evidence for the universal benefits of focusing on individual strengths at work.

This article continues the work done for the 2016 University Metaranking and updates its results for the 2017 edition, with the new data available for 2017. The 2017 University Metaranking relies on the results of the performance of Romanian universities in international league tables / rankings in the field of higher education. The results are discussed from a qualitative and quantitative point of view; furthermore, a sensitivity analysis is also applied to them. Moreover, alongside the global results, the article discusses results on domains and subjects. Starting from the resulting metaranking, the article proposes a possible classification of Romanian universities into four classes and also suggests possible future public policies concerning especially (research) funding of performant universities at national level. Potential international and national developments are also discussed, with a view of supporting Romanian universities to improve their performance at international level.

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between identity domains (educational and relational identity) and life satisfaction in a cross-national perspective, by targeting minority (Roma) and majority youth in Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Kosovo, and Romania. Based on the three-factor identity formation model, we investigated the interplay between three identity processes (i.e., commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment) and life satisfaction. Participants were 1860 adolescents aged 12–19 years from Albania (n = 350), Bulgaria (n = 398), the Czech Republic (n = 293), Kosovo (n = 542), and Romania (n = 277). They completed self-reports of the Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS) and the Life Satisfaction Scale (SWLS). We adopted a structural equation modelling approach to test (a) measurement invariance of identity and life satisfaction models across groups and (b) associations between identity domains (educational and relational) and life satisfaction. Findings indicated measurement invariance for identity and life satisfaction measures across cultural groups. In the total sample, life satisfaction was consistently associated with high commitment, high in-depth exploration, and low reconsideration of commitment in the educational identity domain. Sample-specific associations highlighted important cultural differences. Implications of these findings for identity and well-being in minority and mainstream youth across the countries under investigation are discussed.

This study examines ethnic, national, familial, and religious identity and well-being of 632 Roma minority and 589 majority adolescents (age: M = 15.98 years, SD = 1.34) in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Kosovo, and Romania. Results indicated that Roma showed lower endorsement of national identity but stronger religious identity than their majority counterparts. Path models showed positive associations of familial and religious identities with well-being, whereas Roma identity was negatively associated with well-being, particularly for Roma in Bulgaria and Kosovo (countries with a less active policy toward improving conditions of Roma). In the latter countries, Roma ethnic identity is less relevant and weakly associated with psychological well-being of youth.

Abstract. The Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS; Crocetti, Rubini, & Meeus, 2008 ) is a recently developed measure of identity that has been shown to be a reliable tool for assessing identity processes in adolescents. This study examines psychometric properties of the U-MICS in a large adolescent sample from seven European countries focused on the interplay of commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment. Participants were 1,007 adolescents from Bulgaria (n = 146), the Czech Republic (n = 142), Italy (n = 144), Kosovo (n = 150), Romania (n = 142), Slovenia (n = 156), and the Netherlands (n = 127). We tested the U-MICS measurement invariance, reliability estimates in each language version, and compared latent identity means across groups. Results showed that the U-MICS has good internal consistency as well as configural, metric, and partial scalar invariance across groups in the sampled countries.

The study explores folk theory on work culture as seen by Romanian employees (N = 146). Semi-structured interviews have been conducted to find answers to the following questions: 1) Which are the main qualities and flaws of Romanian workers? 2) What distinguishes the Romanians by others in terms of working style? The results show that the main categories describing qualities of Romanian working style are hardworking, cleverness, multitasking and creativity, while the main flaws are: “sloppy work”, lack of discipline, laziness and multi-qualification. The findings are discussed in the light of within-culture approach, along with limitations and directions for future research.

This study explores how Romanian employees understand and describe equity theory constructs. We conducted 87 interviews to identify employee perceptions in relation to: (a) contribution that is worth rewarding, (b) expected rewards in return for contribution, (c) referent person selected for comparison in order to evaluate the fairness of employee–employer exchange, and (d) the dominant strategy to reduce inequity. Results show that Romanian employees expect to be rewarded first for their personal features and second for their work behavior. The nonfinancial rewards, mainly appreciation and recognition, have similar importance as financial reward. When they evaluate the exchange with the organization, Romanian employees choose not to compare with others or to compare with their own performance standards. The preferred strategy to reduce inequity is to cognitively distort inputs and outcomes, by lowering the value of work effort and maximizing the occupational status. Implications for human resource development practice and future research are considered.

Meaning in life has been consistently documented as an essential component for a “good life” and a key to positive functioning (Davis, Wortman, Lehman, & Silver, 2000; Scollon & King, 2004). In this chapter, we examined the relationship between positive affect (PA) and the experience of life meaning among emerging adults in Romania. Results showed that PA was positively and significantly correlated with meaning of life and the most consistent predictor of the overall experience of meaning in life. We conclude that positive moods may predispose emerging adults to feel that life is meaningful. These results provide new knowledge on the construct of meaning in life among under investigated cultural sample in Europe in line with renewed attention on psychological strengths in emerging adulthood.

The paper presents directions to investigate distributive justice preferences in Romania, at national and regional level. Based on previous findings, it was hypothesized that belonging to one of the six major cultural–historical Romanian regions (Moldavia, Transylvania, Wallachia, Banat, Dobruja, Oltenia) may affect the preference for a fairness principle. The expectation is that people from Western Romania will prefer to a greater extent an equity-based allocation model, while people from Southern and Eastern parts of the country will prefer a distribution pattern with equality as a stronger predictor. A factorial survey design to investigate distributive justice in Romania is presented and discussed.

This study explores relations among nationalism, ethnic identity, perceived threat and attitudes towards the Roma among 178 Bulgarian and 211 Romanian adolescents (age: M = 16.96, SD = .75). Results indicated that Bulgarian youth revealed stronger nationalism, ethnic identity, perceived threat and negative attitudes toward Roma than their Romanian peers. A path model showed that perceived threat was a positive predictor of Romaphobia for both groups. Furthermore, we observed that Romaphobia was strongly related to adolescents’ nationalism and this relationship was mediated by perceived economic, symbolic and physical threat. Findings are discussed in terms of difference in salience and similarity of relations between nationalism and romaphobic attitudes for youth in two neighbor countries with a similar post-communist history.

We investigated reward-allocation judgments when positive outcomes (monetary rewards) were distributed and the allocator was not a co-recipient, in a sample of 200 Romanian students. Within a full factorial survey design, seven factors, selected to affect the allocation decision, were orthogonally varied. The factors reflect individual characteristics of the recipients (gender, age, contribution, need, work experience) and situational characteristics (future work interaction and task routineness). Romanian students preferred to allocate rewards applying an equity-based distribution model. Work experience and task routineness were also significant, yet less important. The recipient gender has no effect on allocation judgments. In terms of between-respondents variability, we found that students’ gender, work experience, and age do not have an impact on reward-allocation judgments. We discuss implications of our findings for organizations and practitioners. Keywords: reward allocation; normative judgments; factorial survey; Romania; norms.