Development and Maintenance of Self-Disclosure on Facebook: The Role of Personality Traits

This study explored the relationships between Facebook self-disclosure and personality traits in a sample of Italian users. The aim was to analyze the predictive role of Big Five personality traits on different parameters of breadth and depth of selfdisclosed behaviors online. Facebook users, aged between 18 and 64 years of age (Mage = 25.3 years, SD = 6.8; N = 958), of which 51% were female, voluntarily completed an online survey assessing personality traits and Facebook self-disclosure. Results at a series of hierarchical regression analyses significantly corroborated the hypotheses that high extroverted and openness people tend to disclose on Facebook a significant amount of personal information, whereas high consciousness and agreeableness users are less inclined to do it. Furthermore, more extroverts and agreeableness people develop less intimacy on Facebook, differently from those with high levels of openness. Results also corroborated the hypothesis of a full mediation of time usage in the relationship between personality factors such as extroversion and conscientiousness with breadth of Facebook self-disclosure. Overall, according to the findings of the current study, personality traits and Facebook self-disclosure become central both as predictive variables for depicting the different profiles of potential addicted and as variables to help educators, teachers, and clinicians to develop training or therapeutic programs aimed at preventing the risk of Internet addiction. Limitations of the study are discussed, and directions for future research are suggested

The Italian version of the Thinking About Life Experiences Questionnaire and its relationship with gender, age, and life events on Facebook

The present study provided a cross-cultural validation of the Thinking About Life Experiences Scale-revised (TALE-R) in an Italian sample of Facebook users (n = 492; female = 378; male = 114; mean age 26.1) to test for replication and universality of the TALE-R three-factor model. Furthermore, it explored the interrelations among gender, age, the scores at the TALE-R and the frequency of posting textual/visual information about individuals' life events on Facebook. Results at exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis gave empirical support to both of a tripartite model for the functions of autobiographical memory (i.e., directive-behavior, social-bonding, and self-continuity) and measurement invariance of this three-factor model across gender and age. Further results at linear correlation and regression analyses showed that directive-behavior and self-continuity functions of autobiographical memory are significantly related to the ways people use Facebook for personal documentation. Age differences more than gender influence this association. Discussion and conclusion reported both theoretical and empirical implications of the findings of the study

Locating gender in space: Emily Dickinson's conception of gender

In her poems, Emily Dickinson defines, locates, reshapes, and forms new concepts of gender. She achieves this by employing spatial metaphors and images that locate female identity in a new territory. Her poetry overcomes gendered dualisms and dichotomies by unmasking opposites as constructs and by accommodating them within the same sphere. As the spaces in Dickinson’s poems are abstract, strangely limitless, and ambiguous in their dimensions, her new female subjects have to reside in a paradoxical space. This paradoxical mapping allows for conceptualizations of identity as being simultaneously at the center and at the margin of a certain space, being at once inside and outside. In Dickinson’s nineteenth-century New England, the spaces of nature, the house, and the grave or afterlife are highly saturated with cultural and ideological meaning. Therefore, the transgression of boundaries between nature and culture, the public and the private, and life and death bestows Dickinson’s speakers with power, freedom, and a sense of the arbitrariness of the concepts attached to these boundaries. Through the exploitation of marginal spaces such as swamps, closets, the space within walls, and the dead body, Dickinson relocates desire and relationships between men and women. By reorganizing the asymmetrical attributions of power and gender to which her speakers are subjected, Dickinson carves out space for unconventional identities and rebellious acts

Relationships Between Teachers\u27 Past Experiences Learning Mathematics and Their Pedagogical Practices and Beliefs

This creative project centered around the cyclical pattern of mathematics anxiety currently prevalent in our schools. A high percentage of elementary teachers carry mathematics anxiety and beliefs around mathematics that effect their pedagogical practices day-to-day. This anxiety transfers to their students effecting their future choices in mathematics. This project was conducted in case studies with six teachers from a rural charter school. Journey maps, semi-structured interviews, surveys, and observations were used to collect the data

Direct Losses and Media Exposure to Death: The Long-Term Effect of Mourning during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: The social distancing policies adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic forced many individuals to confront their mortality and worry about losing loved ones, making it impossible to say goodbye to them properly. Those not directly experiencing loss were inundated with information about COVID-19-related deaths throughout social media, leading to vicarious grief. This study delved into the long-term effects of direct and vicarious mourning on people’s mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: A sample of 171 adults (65% female) aged 19–66 years (Mage = 25.8, SD = 8.57) voluntarily participated in an online survey assessing self-reported psychological measures of complicated grief, stress, depression, dispositional neuroticism, trait anxiety, and situational anxiety. Results: MANOVAs revealed that direct mourning experiences had an extremely severe impact on anxiety, stress, and fear of COVID-19, and a moderate effect on those without personal losses. Indeed, participants reporting high media exposure showed higher scores of depression and stress. Conclusions: Findings from the current study displayed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, people engaged more in proximal defenses than distal ones, taking health-protective measures, experiencing increased anxiety levels toward virus infection, and feeling distressed. Additionally, vicarious mourning was more strongly associated with depression due to emotional empathy with others

The effects of Rapamycin on Lifespan and Healthspan in Caenorhabditis elegans atg-18 mutants

Aging is a biological process causing loss of physical integrity, reduced function, and higher vulnerability to death. Aging also increases the risk of major human diseases including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, and neurodegenerative disorders like dementia. Research on aging and age-related diseases is important to improve human health during aging to minimize the global socioeconomic burden and challenges in healthcare. Autophagy is a cellular clearance pathway which promotes homeostasis in the cells and is proposed as a hallmark of aging. A disruption of autophagy is shown to accelerate age-related aggregation of proteins and shorten lifespan in several model organisms. An increase in autophagy e.g., by the autophagy-inducer rapamycin has shown suppressed protein aggregation as well as promoted health and longevity. Studies have shown that induction of autophagy by treatment with rapamycin in the widely used nematode Caenorhabditis elegans extends lifespan and healthspan parameters. This study aimed to investigate the effects of rapamycin treatment with a malfunctioning autophagy-machinery to see whether the treatment can affect lifespan and/or healthspan without affecting autophagy. C. elegans atg-18(gk378) with a loss-of-function mutation causing a malfunctional autophagy-machinery were investigated. Lifespan assay, as well as the healthspan assays pharyngeal pumping and thrashing were performed in the mutant and in a WT strain to examine the effects of the treatment. The lifespan assay showed a decreased lifespan for the mutants treated with rapamycin, suggesting that rapamycin might affect other mechanisms related to the process of aging with a negative effect. Considering that the thrashing assay might be a more reliable healthspan parameter than the pumping assay, rapamycin-treatment seemed to increase healthspan of the mutants as well as for the WT. To validate the effect of rapamycin on autophagy and the mammalian ATG-18 homolog WIPI2, HeLa cells with GFP-tagged WIPI2B were treated with rapamycin. Imaging of the cells clearly showed an increase in autophagy after 24 hours of treatment. Imaging as well as Western Blots suggested that 2 hours of treatment is not sufficient to show an effect of rapamycin-treatment. This study suggests that rapamycin decreases the lifespan of C. elegans atg-18(gk378) mutants, but to some degree promote healthier aging. The mechanisms seemingly affected by rapamycin in the C. elegans mutants may be interesting for further investigation. Not only in C. elegans, but also using other model organisms to investigate the replicability of the results in other models

Prevalence and Correlates of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in adults from a French Community Sample

Validated tools are lacking in languages like French to diagnose ADHD in adults. The Adult ADHD symptoms Self-Report (ASRS) was filled out by 1,171 parents of 900 school-aged youths in the context of the Children and Parents with ADHD and Related Disorders study. Prevalence estimates based on three scoring methods are compared (6-item screener, all 18 items, or the screener followed by the 12 remaining items). Based on the recommended and more conservative scoring method, the overall prevalence of ADHD symptoms is estimated to be 2.99%, without significant group differences between genders, or between younger and older adults. Potential correlates of ADHD symptoms were also examined in their relatives (children, brothers/sisters, uncles/aunts, and parents): birth order, level of education, body mass index categories, enuresis, suicide attempts, depression, and learning disabilities. Adults can be screened for ADHD symptoms using the ASRS; negative long-term outcomes should be assessed in patients’ relatives too

Thermodynamics of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the star lattice

Using a combination of quantum Monte Carlo simulations in adapted cluster bases, the finite temperature Lanczos method, and an effective Hamiltonian approach, we explore the thermodynamic properties of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the star lattice. We consider various parameter regimes on this strongly frustrated Archimedean lattice, including the case of homogeneous couplings as well as the distinct parameter regimes of dominant vs. weak dimer coupling. For the latter case, we explore the quantum phase diagram in the presence of inhomogeneous trimer couplings, preserving inversion symmetry. We compare the efficiency of different cluster decoupling schemes for the quantum Monte Carlo simulations in terms of the sign problem, contrast the thermodynamic properties to those of other strongly frustrated quantum magnets, such as the kagome lattice model, and comment on previous results from tensor-network calculations regarding a valence bond crystal phase in the regime of weak dimer coupling. Finally, we relate our results to recently reported experimental findings on a Cu-based quantum magnetic spin-1/2 compound with an underlying star lattice structure.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figure