A study of the association between identity, life engagement and well-being among young Asian adults

The eudaemonic tradition asserts that life engagement, that is the pursuit of a meaningful way of living, is an important element of well-being. Self-identity theory posits that individuals’ identities significantly contribute to their sense of meaning and belonging, which in turn boost well-being. The present study aimed to establish the extent to which self-identities are predictors of wellbeing and whether they are subsumed within the life engagement construct. An opportunity sample of Singaporeans (n = 269) aged 18–35 (M = 23.88, SD = 4.52) completed the Aspects of Identity Questionnaire, Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale and Life Engagement Test. Correlational analysis showed that personal, social, relational and collective identities were significantly associated with life engagement and well-being. However, multiple regressions demonstrated that life-engagement subsumed collective and relational identity almost completely, and also accounted for a significant amount of the variance in personal and social identities in the prediction of well-being, broadly supporting the eudaemonic model. It was shown that social and personal identities were predictors of well-being beyond life engagement, possibly because these identities satisfy some of psychological needs that promote various benefits that are independent of life engagement, yet still important for wellbeing. It is suggested that these differences in the salience of identity types to well-being may be indicative of changes in the sense of identity among young Singaporeans that have arisen as a result of social policy or possibly changes in the ways of identity expression in the Internet. The implications of the findings are discussed and recommendations made for future research

Vegetative growth and water use characterization of a maize introgression library

Previous work showed that a maize introgression library (IL) derived from the cross between Gasp\ue9 Flint (an early flowering Canadian landrace) and B73 (the reference maize line) segregated for phenology as well for seminal root architecture (SRA) traits. In this experiment, the IL was evaluated in the high-throughput phenotyping platform PhenoArch (INRA, Montpellier

Marker-assisted introgression of the salinity tolerance locus Saltol in temperate japonica rice

Background Rice is one of the most salt sensitive crops at seedling, early vegetative and reproductive stages. Varieties with salinity tolerance at seedling stage promote an efficient growth at early stages in salt affected soils, leading to healthy vegetative growth that protects crop yield. Saltol major QTL confers capacity to young rice plants growing under salt condition by maintaining a low Na+/ K+ molar ratio in the shoots. Results Marker-assisted backcross (MABC) procedure was adopted to transfer Saltol locus conferring salt tolerance at seedling stage from donor indica IR64-Saltol to two temperate japonica varieties, Vialone Nano and Onice. Forward and background selections were accomplished using polymorphic KASP markers and a final evaluation of genetic background recovery of the selected lines was conducted using 15,580 SNP markers obtained from Genotyping by Sequencing. Three MABC generations followed by two selfing, allowed the identification of introgression lines achieving a recovery of the recurrent parent (RP) genome up to 100% (based on KASP markers) or 98.97% (based on GBS). Lines with highest RP genome recovery (RPGR) were evaluated for agronomical-phenological traits in field under nonsalinized conditions. VN1, VN4, O1 lines were selected considering the agronomic evaluations and the RPGR% results as the most interesting for commercial exploitation. A physiological characterization was conducted by evaluating salt tolerance under hydroponic conditions. The selected lines showed lower standard evaluation system (SES) scores: 62% of VN4, and 57% of O1 plants reaching SES 3 or SES 5 respectively, while only 40% of Vialone Nano and 25% of Onice plants recorded scores from 3 to 5, respectively. VN1, VN4 and O1 showed a reduced electrolyte leakage values, and limited negative effects on relative water content and shoot/root fresh weight ratio. Conclusion The Saltol locus was successfully transferred to two elite varieties by MABC in a time frame of three years. The application of background selection until BC3F3 allowed the selection of lines with a RPGR up to 98.97%. Physiological evaluations for the selected lines indicate an improved salinity tolerance at seedling stage. The results supported the effectiveness of the Saltol locus in temperate japonica and of the MABC procedure for recovering of the RP favorable traits

Inhibitor sensitivity of respiratory complex I in human platelets: A possible biomarker of ageing

AbstractNADH-Coenzyme Q reductase was assayed in platelet mitochondrial membranes obtained from 19 pools of two venous blood samples from female young (19–30 years) individuals and 18 pools from aged ones (66–107 years). The enzyme activities were not significantly changed in the two groups, but a decrease of sensitivity to the specific inhibitor, rotenone, occurred in a substantial number of aged individuals. The results are in agreement with the predictions of the mitochondrial theory of ageing and may be used to develop a sensitive biomarker of the ageing process

From local social mindfulness to global sustainability efforts?

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Social mindfulness and prosociality vary across the globe

Humans are social animals, but not everyone will be mindful of others to the same extent. Individual differences have been found, but would social mindfulness also be shaped by one’s location in the world? Expecting cross-national differences to exist, we examined if and how social mindfulness differs across countries. At little to no material cost, social mindfulness typically entails small acts of attention or kindness. Even though fairly common, such low-cost cooperation has received little empirical attention. Measuring social mindfulness across 31 samples from industrialized countries and regions (n = 8,354), we found considerable variation. Among selected country-level variables, greater social mindfulness was most strongly associated with countries’ better general performance on environmental protection. Together, our findings contribute to the literature on prosociality by targeting the kind of everyday cooperation that is more focused on communicating benevolence than on providing material benefits

Reply to Komatsu et al.: From local social mindfulness to global sustainability efforts?

Komatsu et al. (1) argue that Van Doesum et al. (2) may have overlooked the role of GDP in reporting a positive association between social mindfulness (SoMi) and the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) at country level. Although the relationship between EPI and SoMi is relatively weaker for countries with higher GDP, that does not imply that the overall observed relationship is a statistical artifact. Rather, it implies that GDP may be a moderator of the relationship between EPI and SoMi. The observed correlation is a valid result on average across countries, and the actual effect size would, at least to some degree, depend on GDP

Reply to Nielsen et al.: Social mindfulness is associated with countries' environmental performance and individual environmental concern.

Nielsen et al. (1) argue that Van Doesum et al. (2) need to consider three points for their interpretation of a positive association between individual-level social mindfulness (SoMi) and environmental performance (EPI) at the country level (3). The association is weaker when 1) it is controlled for GDP and 2) when the data of three countries are removed; also, 3) the data do not address the association between SoMi and individual-level environmental concern. We discuss these points in turn

Perceptions of the appropriate response to norm violation in 57 societies

Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio