Psychology

The infant feeding decision is complex and involves the influence of psychological, social, and economic factors, and health care system. This study was examining a hypothesized model of relationship between social support, knowledge, attitude, self-efficacy in influencing breastfeeding practice. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study which measuring all variables using questionnaires. All of the scales were translated into Indonesian language and the internal consistency reliability scores (Cronbach’s alpha) were found to be above 0.7 for all scales. A total of 173 nonworking mothers with babies between 0-6 months who joined the mother support group (MSG) program participated in this study. Hierarchical multiple regression test was used to assess the influence of social support, knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy on breastfeeding. In order to test the hypothesized model of relationship between social support, knowledge, attitude, self-efficacy, and breastfeeding practice, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for. Results: The results showed that only knowledge has significant influence on breastfeeding practice among the non working mothers (beta= .21, p= .01). Conclusions and implications: For nonworking mothers who joined MSG program, there was only knowledge that has significant influence on breastfeeding practice. MSG may be a suitable method to promote breastfeeding among Indonesian mothers.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of transformational leadership by head teachers in Sotik Sub County and its relationship to teacher job satisfaction. This study was conceived after the realization that there had been increased cases of teacher attrition (transfers and resignation) in the past three years. For example, teachers’ transfers had been increasing by 5.2 percent annually while teachers resigning from their jobs had been on a steady increase. The objectives of the study were to establish the extent to which head teachers apply intellectual stimulation approaches and individualized consideration, on teachers’ job satisfaction in Sotik Sub County primary schools. The theoretical framework for this study was based on transformational leadership theory developed by Burns (1978) and elaborated by Bass (1985). The study adopted an ex post facto and descriptive survey research designs. The study was conducted in Sotik Sub County, Sotik County. The target population for the study comprised of 52 head teachers and 667 teachers employed by TSC. The sample size studied comprised of 16 head teachers who were purposively selected and 200 teachers who were selected using stratified and simple random sampling methods. The study collected data using revised MLQ and MSQ questionnaires by Bass and Avolio (1997). The research instruments were tested for validity and reliability prior to being used in the field. The data collected from the field was analyzed using mixed method approaches. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 20) aided in data entry, coding and analysis of quantitative data from questionnaires. In presenting analysed quantitative data, descriptive statistics indicating frequency, percentages, means, and standard deviations were executed to analyze the data quantitatively while inferential statistics: multiple regression analysis and T-test correlation were used to check on the relationship between various transformational leadership strategies and teachers job satisfaction. For qualitative data, themes and sub-themes were used to classify data from interviews. Tables, graphs and pie charts were used for presentation of the analyzed data. The results of the study showed that 58.3% of teachers’ job satisfaction was explained by transformational leadership style exhibited by head teachers in public primary schools in Sotik Sub County. Correlation results on the independent variables showed that there was significant correlation (p<0.01) between; individualised consideration (r=0.613), and intellectual stimulation (r=0.735) and job satisfaction of teachers. The study recommends that head teachers should be role models, they need to be ensuring effective communication between them and teachers, they need to provide and articulate clear vision to teachers and support continuous professional development programmes for teachers in their schools. The study is significant to head teachers, teachers, school board of management, and Ministry of Education and future researchers.

In spite of its popularity, the Big Five Personality has been criticized for being too descriptive to provide a theoretical model of personality. The current study aims to investigate the extent to which personality and demographic variables contribute to motivation, competitiveness and job satisfaction as defined by measuring their personality, work motivation and satisfaction. This paper shows that conscientiousness and job status were both significant predictors of job satisfaction. All acknowledgement that individual differences can affect the success of an intervention, may contribute to the design of effective work reorganisation schemes that are better suited to the employees they seek to benefit. Originality. The value of this paper was that it looked at how personality and demographic factors may influence work motivation, level of competitiveness and work satisfaction.

People with different personality traits show different coping styles and different degrees of vulnerability to the experience of traumatic events. Pregnancy is one of the events that may cause stress and depression in some women and put mother and child’s health at risk. In this study the relationship between pregnant women’s big five personality factors, coping styles and depression has been studied. The population of the study consists of all pregnant women who referred to a specialized center of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Iran in the first quarter of 2009. 130 questionnaires (Revised NEO Personality inventory, Multidimensional Coping Inventory (MCI) and depression questionnaires) with multi-stage random cluster sampling were distributed among subjects, 80 of which were completed and analyzed using SPSS16 statistical software. Regression and MANOVA statistical methods were used to analyze the data. The results show that Neuroticism has a significant negative relationship with task-oriented coping style and a significant positive relationship with emotion-oriented coping style and depression. Extraversion has a significant positive relationship with task-oriented coping style. Also, Agreeableness has a significant positive relationship with task-oriented coping style and a significant negative relationship with avoidance-oriented coping style and depression. Conscientiousness has a significant positive relationship with task-oriented coping style. Furthermore, task-oriented coping style has a significant negative relationship with depression and emotion-oriented coping style has a significant positive relationship with depression. Applying pregnant women’s personal characteristics enables us to predict their styles of coping with stress and depression. Therefore, stress management meetings and training and treatment courses for mothers are of great importance.

One psychological factor which has recently gained importance in translation studies is the concept of willingness to translate (WTT). As a new notion, this willingness has not been probed regarding its relationship with translators' personality. Therefore, the present study, at first, focused on the analysis of the relationship between MA students’ three levels of WTT and their personality types, and then in the second step it tried to test this relationship between students’ WTT levels and their eight personality dichotomies. The quantitative data of this study were gathered through the administration of two questionnaires: willingness to translate (WTT) and the Persian version of the Myers Briggs type indicator (MBTI). The first hypothesized relationship was examined via One-Way ANOVA Test. The result demonstrated no relationship between these two variables. On the other hand, for testing this relationship between students’ WTT levels and eight personality dichotomies, a correlation test was applied. The results indicated a weak and positive correlation between Thinking and WTT and a weak and negative correlation between Feeling and WTT. Based on the results, it can be concluded that students’ personality types and dichotomies can have no effect on their three levels of WTT.

Vocational interests are an enduring and compelling aspect of individual differences and the most popular means for matching individuals to environments, to improve occupational success and job satisfaction. Interests have received its’ strongest impetus from vocational and educational counselling, gaining considerable attention in areas of vocational choice, such as career development and choice, interest testing and career counselling. It has been to a lesser extent incited by personnel classification and selection. This article attempts to analyse whether interest inventories accurately predict the kind of work in which individuals will be satisfied in.

Adolescence, as the last developmental stepping stone to adulthood, is a period of pronounced growth and change. Alexithymia is primarily seen as a personality constructs a trait. It means difficulty to express feelings. It affects ones mental health and somatic health positively or negatively. Social support helps the person to maintain mental health. The aim of the present investigation is to study the alexithymia in relation to general health, somatic health and social support among institutionalized and non institutionalized adolescents. The sample for the study consists of 100 institutionalized and 100 non institutionalized adolescents ranging in the age of 16 to 19 years selected randomly from Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh.  TAS-20 Hindi version used to measure alexithymia (Bagby, Parker, & Taylor, 1994), General Health Questionnaire (GHQ- 28) by Goldberg, 1978, Somatic Health Complaints by Urmila Rani Srivastava ( ) and Social Support Questionnaire by Sarason et al., 1983.  Descriptive statistics, correlation and 2X2 ANOVA (for main and interaction effect) were used. RESULTS- The calculated values show the significant association of general health with the somatic health as the values comes out to be .311 and between general health and satisfaction with social support the value found to be -.183. It was found that there was no interaction effect between alexithymia and type of stay on general health. There was significant main effect of alexithymia on GH total and SHC as the values comes out to be 0.00. The values disclosed that there was significant interaction effect of both the independent variables i.e. alexithymia and type of stay on perceived social support. The calculated F-value found to be 3.931 which is significant at 0.05 level. 

The purpose of this study was to extend the existing body of knowledge on course stress related with university students. A conceptual framework which illustrates four dimensions of coursework stress including coursework worries, lack of skills to perform coursework, dis-likeness towards coursework and attitudinal problems in performing coursework was developed. The present research was a descriptive study which used an indigenous research instruments to measure the coursework stress in the context of university students. The study was carried out on a sample of 100 university students which explored the impact of demographic variables including gender, age, and discipline, employment of the students and level of education on determining the level of coursework stress. Result of the study revealed that the phenomenon of coursework stress does exist among the university students. Female students and younger students experience higher coursework stress, as compared to male and older students. The findings also indicated that different demographic variables contribute significantly in determining the level of coursework stress among M. Phil and PhD. students.

In the context of today's socially-networked-society and the rise of social media applications like Facebook , new perspectives need to be considered. The present research explored social media by examining their potential as new venues for political participation. This research seeks how using social media (e.g Facebook) for free time affects political participation (in Chandigarh, Panchkula, Mohali and Zirakpur areas). A sample of 200 males who were staying with and away from their families in the age group of 19-23 years were administered scales of Facebook usage and political participation. Correlation and descriptive analysis were applied. Results revealed a negative correlation between Facebook usage for free time and political participation. Significant difference also emerged between the males staying with and staying away from families on using Facebook for free time.

Collocation is one of the most problematic areas in second language learning and it seems that if one wants to improve his/her communication in another language the collocational competence should be improved. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of applying Collins Collocation Dictionary as a concordancing tool on learning lexical collocations of Iranian EFL university students. After selecting 30 students randomly, they were divided into 2 groups: experimental group and control group. A pretest was taken from both groups at the same time. In the following week concordancing practice (task1) was given to the students in the experimental group and they were asked to work with10 lexical collocations and identify (mis)collocations. At the same time students in control group received some texts and they were asked to notice the lexical collocations. Then, posttest1 was given to the students in both groups. In the next week, the same procedure with 10 other lexical collocations was repeated and posttest 2 was administered. The results showed that the experimental group performed better on lexical collocations than the control group and their results were significant.