Fatalism, Social Support and Mental Health in Four Former Soviet Cultures

Research on social support has identified differences in levels of support between cultures, but has provided only a limited explanation of the role of values or beliefs in accounting for such variations. In this paper we examine the relationship between fatalism and perceived support amongst 2672 respondents in four former Soviet States (Russia, Georgia, Ukraine and Belorussia), with participants drawn from groups of manual workers, managers, civil servants, students and the retired in these four countries. We also examine the consequences of such social support for mental health across these nations. Findings indicate a small but significant moderator effect for fatalism on the relationship between social support and mental health. These results are discussed in the context of the continuing economic and social challenges facing the citizens of these nations

Topic Modeling as Multi-Objective Contrastive Optimization

Recent representation learning approaches enhance neural topic models by optimizing the weighted linear combination of the evidence lower bound (ELBO) of the log-likelihood and the contrastive learning objective that contrasts pairs of input documents. However, document-level contrastive learning might capture low-level mutual information, such as word ratio, which disturbs topic modeling. Moreover, there is a potential conflict between the ELBO loss that memorizes input details for better reconstruction quality, and the contrastive loss which attempts to learn topic representations that generalize among input documents. To address these issues, we first introduce a novel contrastive learning method oriented towards sets of topic vectors to capture useful semantics that are shared among a set of input documents. Secondly, we explicitly cast contrastive topic modeling as a gradient-based multi-objective optimization problem, with the goal of achieving a Pareto stationary solution that balances the trade-off between the ELBO and the contrastive objective. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our framework consistently produces higher-performing neural topic models in terms of topic coherence, topic diversity, and downstream performance.Comment: Accepted at ICLR 2024 (poster

Második generációs vietnámi tanulók akkulturációja és iskolai szocializációja Magyarországon = Acculturation and school socialization of second-generation Vietnamese pupils in Hungary

A vietnámi fiatalok akkulturációja vegyes mintázatú. Birman akkulturációs modellje (nyelv, identitás, viselkedés) alapján egyedül az identitás terén látható a származási csoport dominanciája. Nyelvismeret és nyelvhasználat tekintetében kétnyelvűség tapasztalható. Téma- és partner függően váltanak a magyar és a vietnámi nyelv között a családon belül. Viselkedés vetületében kifejezetten integratív a mintázat: mind magyar, mind vietnámi barátaik vannak és mindkétféle viselkedéses elemeket tesznek magukévá . A saját etnikai identitás iránti érdeklődés, exploráció, valamint az etnikai nyelvhasználat gyakorisága pozitívan, míg a vietnámi viselkedéses elemek inkább negatívan korrelálnak az iskolai teljesítménnyel. Egységesen fontos szerepet tulajdonítanak a tanulásnak mind a szülők, mind a fiatalok. Az iskolai teljesítmény attribúciójában rendkívül nagy az erőfeszítésnek, sőt a „tanulás iránti szenvedély”-nek tulajdonított szerep (Li, 2002). Abban van inkább nagyobb tanulási nehézségük, amit otthonról, az iskolán kívülről kell hozni. Ez szókincsben, nyelvi kifejezésekben, háttértudásokban mutatkozik meg. Közösség-alapú akkulturáció mentén vizsgálódva azonosítottuk a vietnámi nyelvtanfolyamok mögött húzódó motivációkat, valamint egy vietnámi kulturális nap kapcsán rámutattunk arra, hogy a sikeresebb iskolai és társadalmi integráció érdekében a migránsok egyik legfontosabb nyilvános szférájában, az iskolában fontos lenne láthatóvá és legitimmé tenni a kisebbségi identitást. | Acculturation of the Vietnamese young follows a mixed pattern. Among the three elements of the LIB (language, identity, behavior) model of Birman, only identity shows the dominance of the group of origin. Bilingualism is to be found in language knowledge and language use. Within family, language-switching between Hungarian and Vietnamese depends on conversation partner and topic. Behaviors are strongly integrated: respondents have friends and adopt elements from both cultures. Exploration of ethnic identity as well as frequency of ethnic language positively, while Vietnamese behavioral elements negatively correlate with school achievement. Both parents and children show a high consensus concerning the importance of schooling and learning. Effort and „passion toward learning” (Li, 2002) is given an extremely significant role in attribution of school achievement. Due to different language and cultural background, difficulties can be found however in vocabulary and background knowledge. This is what students bring with themselves from outside school, from home. In line with community-based acculturation approach, motivations underlying Vietnamese language schools were identified. Concerning a Vietnamese Culture Day in a school, it is pointed out that making minority identity legitimate and visible in school, one of the most important public spheres of migrant groups can help to foster their more successful integration in school and in host society in general

Social representations of HIV/AIDS in five Central European and Eastern European countries: A multidimensional analysis

Cognitive processing models of risky sexual behaviour have proliferated in the two decades since the first reporting of HIV/AIDS, but far less attention has been paid to individual and group representations of the epidemic and the relationship between these representations and reported sexual behaviours. In this study, 494 business people and medics from Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Poland and Russia sorted free associations around HIV/AIDS in a matrix completion task. Exploratory factor and multidimensional scaling analyses revealed two main dimensions (labelled ‘Sex’ and ‘Deadly disease’), with significant cultural and gender variations along both dimension scores. Possible explanations for these results are discussed in the light of growing concerns over the spread of the epidemic in this region

An exploratory study of Hungarian university students’ sexual attitudes and behaviours

Sexual health is the integration of the somatic, emotional, intellectual and social aspects of sexual being that may positively enrich personality (WHO, 1975). It includes not only the prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), unwanted and unplanned pregnancy, coercion, violence and discrimination, but also a positive approach to sexuality (Edwards & Coleman, 2004). Given the apparent inadequacies of the global approach to sexual health education (SHE) for young people (UNESCO, 2009), it is unsurprising that the prevalence of STIs have increased worldwide (WHO, 2018). Although Hungary is still among the countries with low HIV/STISs infection rate, sexually active young people are at higher risk of infection (Goodwin et al., 2003; Gyarmathy, McNutt, et al., 2002; UnAIDS, 2018).peer-reviewe

Initial psychological responses to influenza A, H1N1 ("Swine flu")

Background The outbreak of the pandemic flu, Influenza A H1N1 (Swine Flu) in early 2009, provided a major challenge to health services around the world. Previous pandemics have led to stockpiling of goods, the victimisation of particular population groups, and the cancellation of travel and the boycotting of particular foods (e.g. pork). We examined initial behavioural and attitudinal responses towards Influenza A, H1N1 ("Swine flu") in the six days following the WHO pandemic alert level 5, and regional differences in these responses. Methods 328 respondents completed a cross-sectional Internet or paper-based questionnaire study in Malaysia (N = 180) or Europe (N = 148). Measures assessed changes in transport usage, purchase of preparatory goods for a pandemic, perceived risk groups, indicators of anxiety, assessed estimated mortality rates for seasonal flu, effectiveness of seasonal flu vaccination, and changes in pork consumption Results 26% of the respondents were 'very concerned' about being a flu victim (42% Malaysians, 5% Europeans, p < .001). 36% reported reduced public transport use (48% Malaysia, 22% Europe, p < .001), 39% flight cancellations (56% Malaysia, 17% Europe, p < .001). 8% had purchased preparatory materials (e.g. face masks: 8% Malaysia, 7% Europe), 41% Malaysia (15% Europe) intended to do so (p < .001). 63% of Europeans, 19% of Malaysians had discussed the pandemic with friends (p < .001). Groups seen as at 'high risk' of infection included the immune compromised (mentioned by 87% respondents), pig farmers (70%), elderly (57%), prostitutes/highly sexually active (53%), and the homeless (53%). In data collected only in Europe, 64% greatly underestimated the mortality rates of seasonal flu, 26% believed seasonal flu vaccination gave protection against swine flu. 7% had reduced/stopped eating pork. 3% had purchased anti-viral drugs for use at home, while 32% intended to do so if the pandemic worsened. Conclusion Initial responses to Influenza A show large regional differences in anxiety, with Malaysians more anxious and more likely to reduce travel and to buy masks and food. Discussions with family and friends may reinforce existing anxiety levels. Particular groups (homosexuals, prostitutes, the homeless) are perceived as at greater risk, potentially leading to increased prejudice during a pandemic. Europeans underestimated mortality of seasonal flu, and require more information about the protection given by seasonal flu inoculation

Az iskolai eredményesség és a tanulási motiváció kulturális jellemzõi. Roma és többségi tanulók összehasonlítása

Hetedik osztályos tanulók tanulási motívumairól, iskolai eredményességéről, valamint családi-kulturális körülményeiről gyűjtöttünk adatokat. 246 fős mintánkban hátrányos helyzetű és roma tanulók is szerepeltek. A kedvező és kedvezőtlen hátterű iskolások motívumai között feltárt különbségeket korábbi tanulmányunkban már közreadtuk (Fejes és Józsa, 2005), jelen munkánkban a roma és a többségi tanulók motivációjában és iskolai eredményeiben mutatkozó eltérésekre koncentrálunk