Although the majority of people value the idea of helping others, they often take no particular action. In two field studies we investigated the impact of differently justified requests for spontaneous charity donations and for antisocial behavior like stealing. In the experiments, unwatched stands with cookies and money jars were placed on a crowded city square with one of three different notes: (1) detailed prosocial justification, (2) general justification or (3) no justification. After testing almost 500 participants, we show that mere general arguments can both increase prosocial behavior and decrease antisocial behavior. Additionally, detailed prosocial justification augments generosity, causing people voluntarily to pay more than required. We conclude that prosocial (compliance with request) and antisocial (stealing) behavior is guided by automatic processes that track that there is any reason for the request, while generosity is guided by reflective assessment of the justification of the request.

Background: Pet therapy could help individuals improve their emotions; and physical and mental health. It also could be effective in the treatment of pain, anxiety, depression, and fatigue. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of pet therapy, concurrent with common medication on positive, negative, cognitive and motor symptoms of schizophrenia. Methods: This was a randomized control trial. Statistical population of the current study included all patients who were admitted to the Razi Psychiatric Center of Tehran and received a diagnosis of schizophrenia based on a clinical interview and DSM criteria by a psychiatrist. Thirty six patients were recruited using snowball sampling. Members of the experimental group were transported by a bus to that spot at 9 a.m on the planned days, in the company of the researcher and a nurse. Patients gave care of the rabbits (including feeding, tidying their cages, moving their cages) for 24 sessions of 90 minutes, three days per week during autumn 2016. The One-way covariance test was also used to evaluate effects of Pet therapy on positive, negative, cognitive and motor symptoms of schizophrenia. Results: finding indicated that considering scores of pre-test for positive, negative and cognitive symptoms, there is a significant difference between the two controls and experimental groups, respectively, (F = 17.04, p < 0.05), (F = 17.39, p < 0.05), (F = 152.12, p < 0.05). Conclusion: Pet therapy could be successfully applied by parents, psychologists and care givers of these patients. We suggest using pet therapy for treatment of other psychiatric disorders as well and preferably like dogs and cats.

The two experiments described in this article are focused on semantic priming in the context of lexical ambiguity and hierarchic model of mental lexicon. For both experiments, the verification method was a decision taken in the process of translating a sentence from Polish (L1) to English (L2). The decision was a result of solving dilemma of interpretation of the particular sentence that included homonym. The sentences used in the experiments were prepared in a manner that allowed them to be interpreted in at least two ways – each way being a direct result of interpretation of a ambiguous word meaning included in a sentence. In this study the secondary meanings of the homonyms were primed. In the first experiment the primes were presented in L2 – therefore this part of the study was concentrated on interlingual aspect of semantic priming. The second experiment was focused on intralingual aspect of semantic priming and the primes were presented in L1. The results of both experiments have shown the effect of semantic priming of ambiguous words’ meanings when translating from one language to another. Participants used significantly more often (when translating sentences from Polish to English) those English words the meaning of which was primed in the experimental groups during the first phase of the conducted experiments. We discuss the results in the context of the hierarchic model of mental lexicon in the case of bilingualism and we suggest possible paths for future research.

Humans vary in many aspects of their psychology with differences routinely found in patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, setting individuals apart across time and place. Though many psychologists have attempted to account for these individual differences, one area that has continued to generate interest and disagreement is the concept of motivation. Today, understanding behavioural motivation remains one of the most important questions facing personality theorists. In an attempt to better account for human motivation, the present exploration reviews seminal theoretical positions put forward by Sigmund Freud from a Psychoanalytical perspective and contrastingly, that of Carl Rogers from the Humanistic approach. Critical consideration is specifically applied to how verifiable each perspective may be and the degree of empirical support either account has attained to date. Whilst understanding human motivation is not a new endeavour, the present exploration provides a contemporary critical assessment of traditional psychological explanations.

Various studies have indicated that children’s preferences are biased towards those who have more resources or who are considered more fortunate than others. Little is known, however, about whether this preference translates to a moral assessment of the character of those with more or less resources. Our study included 46 children aged four to five. We asked participants to indicate their preference for the richer and the poorer in desirable resources. We also asked them to attribute the moral character of the moral agent or moral recipient. The children revealed a strong bias towards the advantaged character. Not only did they prefer him as a future friend, they also attributed morally positive social roles to him.

This is both a review of previous research and a theoretical paper on altruism. It discusses one of the crucial theories of prosocial involvement: the distinction between endo- and exocentric prosocial motivation depending on the type of internal gratification for the involved individual: satisfaction of the Self vs. improving the circumstances of another person. The relevance and validity of this distinction finds support in early empirical studies. Contemporary findings suggest a more universal regulatory context of this idea, which transcends the domain of altruism and extends to the more general issues of the Self and social perception. In addition, it anticipates a number of cognitive biases consequential to the relationship between endocentric regulation and the Self. The findings support a reinterpretation of the original term “prosocial motivation” and the use of a broader interpretative construct “prosocial orientation”, understood as a complex syndrome of regulation that encompasses the processes of social perception, value judgements, and Self-regulation, both explicit and subliminal.

The present studies explore how activating concepts pertaining to the origins of interindividual differences affect the processing of stereotypical and counterstereotypical information. The concepts, i.e., nature and nurture, are both assumed to evoke similar stereotypical expectations although nurture implies greater flexibility. The studies show that stereotypical information enhances whereas counterstereotypical information diminishes stereotyping when nurture is activated. In contrast, counterstereotypical evidence challenges what activated nature would suggest and perceivers primed with nature evince stronger stereotyping when they encounter counterstereotypical information. The results also show that priming nature leads perceivers to attribute stereotype conformity to internal causes whereas nurture accredits conformity to situational constraints. Stereotype flexibility is associated with the subjective ease with which perceivers can both imagine counterstereotypical and mentally undo stereotypical evidence.

The aim of the study is to compare the development of self-esteem and identity integration over time among people with disability and without it (data from norm groups), including people with a spinal cord injury as well as with disabilities caused by other reasons. The research examined self-esteem and identity integration of individuals with disability with regard to disability duration, gender, age, correlation analysis of self-esteem and identity integration. The sample consisted of 133 individuals with acquired disabilities. The study used the Polish adaptations of Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and Multidimensional Self-Assessment Inventory. Additionally, the respondents with disability completed a form with questions about their age, gender, disability duration and its cause. The outcomes of SES and MSEI modules were checked against the norm groups. The results demonstrated that self-esteem and identity integration do not vary with regard to gender, age or acquired disability conditions. The differences between subjects with disability and the normalized group have proven to be negligible. However, the factor that turned out to be highly significant was the disability duration. Differences have been observed among groups with disability lasting up to 4 months, from 4 months to 2 years, from 2 to 6 years and over 6 years. To sum up, self-esteem and identity integration correlation proved to be high and positive. These findings suggested that the higher the self-esteem, the more integrated the identity, regardless of either the disability type or its degree. The level of self-esteem is subject to differentiation primarily due to disability duration.

The present study focused on relationships between personality traits, self-efficacy, self-esteem and basic trust, and well-being in context of entrepreneurial activity. Participants were 301 unemployed people, 157 of whom had received a grant from an employment agency to start their own business. Participants completed measures of personality traits, self-efficacy, self-esteem, basic trust, satisfaction with life, positive and negative affect. To verify if beliefs about the self and about the world mediated relationships between personality traits and well-being we conducted a multiple-sample SEM. The study results confirm that the beliefs mediate relationships between personality traits and well-being. They also show that different types of beliefs serve a different function, depending on an individual’s circumstances. Among grant acceptors, self-efficacy did not impact well-being, while self-esteem and basic trust had similar functions in both groups.

In integrated approaches to personality (McAdams & Pals, 2006; McCrae & Costa, 1999), it is possible to examine relationships between personality traits, beliefs as characteristic adaptations, and subjective well-being. This research aimed to verify if implicit self-theories (belief about stability of human nature) proposed by Dweck (2000) and life-engagement proposed by Scheier et al. (2006) play a mediating role in relationships between personality traits and satisfaction with life. The relationships were examined with respect to infertility problem. A sample of 120 adults (aged 26–48; M = 36.60; SD = 4.82; 50% women) participated in the research. The mediation hypotheses were examined, and furthermore, four groups of couples were compared in terms of measured variables. The groups were: couples with (1) cured and (2) uncured infertility and couples who were not infertile and (3) have and (4) do not have children. Life-engagement mediated the relationship between Conscientiousness and satisfaction with life in the whole sample. The belief about stability of human nature mediated relationships between subjective well-being and Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Extraversion only among couples with an infertility problem.

The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between Big-Five personality traits, perceived self-efficacy (GSES) and dimensions of occupational burnout in accordance with Christina Maslach’s three-factor burnout model (emotional burnout, depersonalization, perceived lack of own accomplishments). Data collected among 271 teachers (82% female) aged 20–68 confirmed findings from previous research that four personality traits (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness) are correlated with burnout and that they are significant predictors for all dimensions of burnout. In addition, it was shown that GSES plays a moderating role as a buffer that protects people with high levels of neuroticism from a sense of lack of own accomplishments. It was also found that GSES plays a mediating role for the relationship between Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism and perceived lack of own accomplishments and that it is a suppressor for the relationship of neuroticism with emotional exhaustion. The results are discussed in the context of personality theories and their possible applications.

Participants in the study were recreational runners who completed measures of their orientation to exercise, the Five Factor Model of personality, self-efficacy as a specific adaptation (a socio-cognitive construct of personality) and measures of subjective well-being (life satisfaction) and eudaimonic well-being (life engagement). Consistent with previous research, task-oriented (internally focused) motivation to exercise was positively related to extraversion and to conscientiousness, and ego-oriented (externally focused) motivation was positively related to extraversion. Also consistent with previous research, self-efficacy and measures of well-being were positively related to extraversion and conscientiousness. Mediational analyses found that well-being mediated relationships between task-oriented motives and both extraversion and conscientiousness. Self-efficacy mediated the relationship between ego-oriented motives and extraversion. The implications of these results for the study individual differences in exercise motivation are discussed.

Subjective Well-Being is related to the Big-Five and to Individualistic and Collectivistic beliefs of Polish adolescents. In the present study, we examined whether Individualism and Collectivism beliefs mediate between the Big-Five and Subjective Well-being among adolescents, young and middle-aged adults. Adolescents (N = 174, 36% men, aged 14–18), young (N = 254, 45% men, aged 19–24) and middle-aged adults (N = 252, 54% men, aged 40–55) completed the NEO-FFI, the Ind-Col20, and measures of Subjective Well-being. The three groups differed on all dimensions. Adolescents reported the highest Neuroticism, the lowest Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, the highest Individualism and Collectivism beliefs and lowest SWB. Among adolescents, SEM analyses indicated that Subjective Well-being was negatively related to Neuroticism and Agreeableness, positively to Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Horizontal Individualism, Horizontal and Vertical Collectivism. Among young and middle-aged adults Subjective Well-being was negatively related to Neuroticism and Horizontal Collectivism, positively to Openness, Conscientiousness, Horizontal and Vertical Individualism. Beliefs partially mediated the effects of traits. Relationships were different for cognitive and affective Subjective Well-being indices.

The purpose of this two-wave longitudinal study was to investigate cross-lagged relations between sexual attitudes, perception of love and sex, and young adults’ relationship status over a period of one year. The current study tested two hypotheses: the first hypothesis assuming that sexual attitudes, perception of love and sex can be predictive of relationship status after a one-year interval; and the second hypothesis assuming that relationship status at T1 can be predictive of sexual attitudes and perception of love and sex after a one-year interval. Results from 117 Polish young adults (94 females and 23 males) aged 20–33 (M = 21.42, SD = 1.79) indicated that the conviction that sex is no longer as much a part of the relationship as it used to be (i.e., Sex is Declining scale) measured in the first assessment was a significant predictor of relationship status after a one-year interval. Furthermore, sexual attitudes and perception of love and sex at T1 were found to be predictive of sexual attitudes and perception of love and sex at T2. In addition, gender at T1 was predictive of instrumentality at T2, while being female at T1 related to higher instrumentality at T2.