Love and affectionate touch toward romantic partners all over the world

Touch is the primary way people communicate intimacy in romantic relationships, and affectionate touch behaviors such as stroking, hugging and kissing are universally observed in partnerships all over the world. Here, we explored the association of love and affectionate touch behaviors in romantic partnerships in two studies comprising 7880 participants. In the first study, we used a cross-cultural survey conducted in 37 countries to test whether love was universally associated with affectionate touch behaviors. In the second study, using a more fine-tuned touch behavior scale, we tested whether the frequency of affectionate touch behaviors was related to love in romantic partnerships. As hypothesized, love was significantly and positively associated with affectionate touch behaviors in both studies and this result was replicated regardless of the inclusion of potentially relevant factors as controls. Altogether, our data strongly suggest that affectionate touch is a relatively stable characteristic of human romantic relationships that is robustly and reliably related to the degree of reported love between partners.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Reasons for facebook usage: Data from 46 countries

Seventy-nine percent of internet users use Facebook, and on average they access Facebook eight times a day (Greenwood et al., 2016). To put these numbers into perspective, according to Clement (2019), around 30% of the world\u2019s population uses this Online Social Network (OSN) site. Despite the constantly growing body of academic research on Facebook (Chou et al., 2009; Back et al., 2010; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; McAndrew and Jeong, 2012; Wilson et al., 2012; Krasnova et al., 2017), there remains limited research regarding the motivation behind Facebook use across different cultures. Our main goal was to collect data from a large cross-cultural sample of Facebook users to examine the roles of sex, age, and, most importantly, cultural differences underlying Facebook use

Affective interpersonal touch in close relationships: a cross-cultural perspective

Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual-level factors (sex, age, parasitic history, conservatism, religiosity, and preferred interpersonal distance) and cultural-level factors (regional temperature, parasite stress, regional conservatism, collectivism, and religiosity) in predicting these affective-touching behaviors. Our results indicate that affective touch was most prevalent in relationships with partners and children, and its diversity was relatively higher in warmer, less conservative, and religious countries, and among younger, female, and liberal people. This research allows for a broad and integrated view of the bases of cross-cultural variability in affective touch

Multiple-perspective performance analysis of dairy production systems in Slovenia

The paper illustrates synergies between the socio-economic and emergy evaluation of agricultural activity by studying the dairy sector in Slovenia. Evaluation was performed on nine farm types, representing the diversity of the country's dairy sector. Results indicate that socio-economic evaluation favours larger conventional systems. Emergy analysis however, favours organic farms, which better exploit local resources and put less stress to the local environment. Socio-economic and emergy indicators show that small conventional farms are the poorest performers overall. Analysis of emergy flows reveals a high dependency of all farm types from the wider socio-economic system, suggesting a limited scope to improve their sustainability

Complementary CAP Direct Payments from the National Budget and the Farm Income Issue in Slovenia

The estimation of gross value added (GVA), applying the extended economic account for agriculture (EAA) model and the partial equilibrium APAS-PAM model, is carried out to emphasize the importance of complementing the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) direct payments from the national budget for farm incomes in Slovenia after its accession to the European Union (EU). Adopting the EU position of complementing direct payments up to the 40 percent level, a significant decline of farm incomes at the aggregate level could be expected as a result of depressed price levels. Complementary direct payments up to the 100 percent level would not result in significant improvement of agricultural income, but would drastically change the support hierarchy of agricultural commodities in Slovenia.

An international study on psychological coping during COVID-19: towards a meaning-centered coping style

none44siBackground/Objective: This study examined the role of different psychological coping mechanisms in mental and physical health during the initial phases of the COVID-19 crisis with an emphasis on meaning-centered coping. Method: A total of 11,227 people from 30 countries across all continents participated in the study and completed measures of psychological distress (depression, stress, and anxiety), loneliness, well-being, and physical health, together with measures of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping, and a measure called the Meaning-centered Coping Scale (MCCS) that was developed in the present study. Validation analyses of the MCCS were performed in all countries, and data were assessed by multilevel modeling (MLM). Results: The MCCS showed a robust one-factor structure in 30 countries with good test-retest, concurrent and divergent validity results. MLM analyses showed mixed results regarding emotion and problem-focused coping strategies. However, the MCCS was the strongest positive predictor of physical and mental health among all coping strategies, independently of demographic characteristics and country-level variables. Conclusions: The findings suggest that the MCCS is a valid measure to assess meaning-centered coping. The results also call for policies promoting effective coping to mitigate collective suffering during the pandemic.openNikolett Eisenbeck, David F. Carreno, Paul T.P. Wong, Joshua A. Hicks, Ruíz-Ruano García María, Jorge L. Puga, James Greville, Ines Testoni, Gianmarco Biancalani, Ana Carla Cepeda Lopez, Sofía Villareal, Violeta Enea, Christian Schulz-Quach, Jonas Jansen, Maria-Jose Sanchez-Ruiz, Murat Yildirim, Gokmen Arslan, Jose Fernando A. Cruz, Rui Manuel Sofia, Maria Jose Ferreira, Farzana Ashraf, Grazyna Wasowicz, Shahinaz M. Shalaby, Reham A. Amer, Hadda Yousfi, JohnBosco Chika Chukwuorji, Valeschka M. Guerra, Sandeep Singh, Samantha Heintzelman, Bonar Hutapea, Bouchara Bejaoui, Arobindu Dash, Karoly Kornel Schlosser, Malin K. Anniko, Martin Rossa, Hattaphan Wongcharee, Andreja Avsec, Gaja Zager Kocjan, Tina Kavcic, Dmitry A. Leontiev, Olga Taranenko, Elena Rasskazova, Elizabeth Maher, Jose Manuel García-MontesEisenbeck, Nikolett; Carreno, David F.; Wong, Paul T. P.; Hicks, Joshua A.; García María, Ruíz-Ruano; Puga, Jorge L.; Greville, James; Testoni, Ines; Biancalani, Gianmarco; Carla Cepeda Lopez, Ana; Villareal, Sofía; Enea, Violeta; Schulz-Quach, Christian; Jansen, Jonas; Sanchez-Ruiz, Maria-Jose; Yildirim, Murat; Arslan, Gokmen; Cruz, Jose Fernando A.; Manuel Sofia, Rui; Jose Ferreira, Maria; Ashraf, Farzana; Wasowicz, Grazyna; Shalaby, Shahinaz M.; Amer, Reham A.; Yousfi, Hadda; Chika Chukwuorji, Johnbosco; Guerra, Valeschka M.; Singh, Sandeep; Heintzelman, Samantha; Hutapea, Bonar; Bejaoui, Bouchara; Dash, Arobindu; Kornel Schlosser, Karoly; Anniko, Malin K.; Rossa, Martin; Wongcharee, Hattaphan; Avsec, Andreja; Zager Kocjan, Gaja; Kavcic, Tina; Leontiev, Dmitry A.; Taranenko, Olga; Rasskazova, Elena; Maher, Elizabeth; Manuel García-Montes, Jos

Universality of the triangular theory of love: Adaptation and psychometric properties of the triangular love scale in 25 countries

The Triangular Theory of Love (measured with Sternberg\u27s Triangular Love Scale - STLS) is a prominent theoretical concept in empirical research on love. To expand the culturally homogeneous body of previous psychometric research regarding the STLS, we conducted a large-scale cross-cultural study with the use of this scale. In total, we examined more than 11,000 respondents, but as a result of applied exclusion criteria, the final analyses were based on a sample of 7332 participants from 25 countries (from all inhabited continents). We tested configural invariance, metric invariance, and scalar invariance, all of which confirmed the cultural universality of the theoretical construct of love analyzed in our study. We also observed that levels of love components differ depending on relationship duration, following the dynamics suggested in the Triangular Theory of Love. Supplementary files with all our data, including results on love intensity across different countries along with STLS versions adapted in a few dozen languages, will further enable more extensive research on the Triangular Theory of Love