Effect Of Significant Others Research Articles

The role of persuasion by significant others and engagement in bank-switching intention

A person’s beliefs in individual abilities, such as self-efficacy or perceived behavioral control, profoundly affect emotion, cognition, and behavior. However, the influence of such beliefs is not apparent in current research on bank-switching intention and behavior. Moreover, the relationship between bank-switching intention and the sources that promote self-efficacy and perceived behavioral control has received even less attention. In a study with a representative sample of 1245 adults in the Norwegian market, we looked at the role of four promotional sources of self-efficacy, i.e., enactive mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological and affective states, in bank-switching intention. In line with past research, we found a negative association between customer satisfaction and bank-switching intention. However, bank-switching intention was positively associated with promoters of self-efficacy in bank-switching behavior, particularly persuasion from significant others and a feeling of engagement. This feeling of engagement also interacted with customer satisfaction on bank-switching intention. Our findings suggest that bank-switching intentions cannot be attributed solely to customer dissatisfaction. They also involve social cognitive aspects promoting individual self-efficacy and human agency. The effects of significant others and internal emotional activation are important when decoding bank-switching intention.

Mediation role of anxiety on social support and depression among diabetic patients in elderly caring social organizations in China during COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundDiabetes has become a prominent global public health problem, which is an important cause of death, disease burden, and medical and health economic burden.Previous studies have reported that majority of persons diagnosed with diabetes later presented with psychological and mental health diseases. The study aimed to explore the mediation role of anxiety on social support and depression among diabetic patents in elderly caring social organizations (SOs).MethodsA multi-stage stratified cluster random sampling method was used in this cross-sectional study, and a questionnaire consisting of demographic questionnaire, MSPSS, GAD-7, and CES-D-10 was utilized to gather data. SPSS 22.0 and MPLUS 7.4 were used for statistical analysis. Spearman correlation analysis was employed to investigate correlations of key variables. A generalized linear model was used to exam factors associated with depression. Finally, the mediation effect among study variables was investigated by structural equation modeling (SEM).ResultsThe average scores of social support, anxiety, and depression were 58.41 ± 14.67, 2.95 ± 3.95, and 7.24 ± 5.53, respectively. The factors of gender, social support, and anxiety were identified as significantly influential factors related to depression among diabetic patients in elderly caring SOs. The effect of social support on depression was significantly mediated by anxiety (β = -0.467, 95%CI: -0.813 to -0.251). Furthermore, anxiety partially mediated the relationship between family support and depression (β = -0.112, 95%CI: -0.229 to -0.012), and anxiety functioned as a complete mediator in the effect of significant others' support and depression (β = -0.135, 95%CI: -0.282 to -0.024).ConclusionsThe indirect effect of social support on depression through anxiety among diabetic patients in elderly caring SOs was elucidated. Social support played a key role in maintaining and regulating their mental health, particularly from family and significant others. Social support provided by both family and significant others exerted an important influence on maintaining and regulating their mental health. In light of this pathway, the elderly caring SOs should enhance the magnitude of social support from these two sources, thereby diminishing the likelihood of experiencing anxiety and depression.

Time trade-off with someone to live for: impact of having significant others on time trade-off valuations of hypothetical health states

BackgroundThe TTO task involves giving up life years, i.e. living a shorter life, to avoid an undesirable health state. Despite being a hypothetical task, some respondents take other life factors into account when completing the task. This study explored the effect of having children and/or a partner on TTO valuations of hypothetical EQ-5D-5L health states in a valuation study of the general population.MethodsThe study used TTO data collected in a Norwegian EQ-5D-5L valuation study in 2019–2020, by one-to-one pc-assisted interviews following the EQ-VT protocol. We used regression modelling to determine the effect of significant others (having children or a partner) on disutility per health state from the TTO valuations.Results430 respondents were included [mean age 43.8 (SD 15.9) years, 58% female, 48% with children, 68% with a partner, 25% with neither children nor partner]. Having children and/or a partner was associated with lowered willingness to trade life years translating to higher elicited health state utilities (p < 0.01).ConclusionHaving significant others, or the lack of having significant others, was associated with respondents’ valuation of hypothetical health states using TTO, more so than traditional sampling variables such as age and sex. Inadequate representativeness in terms of having significant others could bias health state preference values in valuation studies.

Smoking Cessation Intention and Its Association with Advice to Quit from Significant Others and Medical Professionals.

Few studies have simultaneously considered the effects of significant others and medical professionals’ advice to quit smoking on smoking cessation intention. The present study involved 3841 current adult Korean smokers, divided into four groups with an intention to quit within 1 month, within 6 months, someday, and without intention to quit. Multinomial multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted according to smoking cessation intention level, adjusted for potential confounders, including past smoking cessation attempts. Smokers who had been advised to quit smoking by both significant others and medical professionals, significant others only, and medical professionals only were 2.63 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.62–4.29), 1.84 (95% CI: 1.17–2.89), and 1.44 (95% CI: 0.70–2.94) times more likely to intend to quit within 1 month, respectively, than those who were not advised to quit. The odds ratios of an intention to quit within 6 months were 2.91 (95% CI: 1.87–4.54), 2.49 (95% CI: 1.69–3.68), and 0.94 (95% CI: 0.44–2.05), respectively. To promote smokers’ intention to quit, the role of significant others should be considered. Medical professionals’ advice to quit smoking remains important, increasing the effects of significant others’ advice.

On Perceived Stress and Social Support: Depressive, Anxiety and Trauma-Related Symptoms in Arabic-Speaking Refugees in Jordan and Germany.

Current literature points toward several challenges in the access to sufficient and effective psychosocial care for Syrian refugees in host settings. This study is a comparative investigation into the relationship between “perceived social stress” and “perceived social support” on three of the most prevalent symptom dimensions in Syrian refugees across two host capitals, Berlin and Amman. Eighty nine Syrians refugees were recruited between January 2017 and March 2018. Participants were contacted through local institutions and organizations collaborating with the Charité—Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Assessments include the PHQ-9, GAD-7, HTQ, MSPSS, and PSS. Primary analyses consist of non- or parametric tests and multiple linear regression analyses. Subsample analyses showed relevant depressive, anxiety and trauma-related symptoms. Significant differences in PTSD symptoms (p < 0.04) were found. Participants reported high perceived stress and moderate to high social support. Linear regressions revealed that perceived stress had a significant negative effect (p < 0.01) on clinical outcomes in both subsamples. Perceived social support had a positive influence on depressive (p = 0.02) and PTSD symptoms (p = 0.04) for participants in Berlin. Analyses revealed significant positive effects of “significant others” (p = 0.05) on depressive- in Berlin and “family” (p = 0.03) support for PTSD symptoms in Amman. Study results show that levels of “perceived stress” appear to be the same across different host countries, whereas types of social support and their effect on mental health differ significantly depending on the host setting. Outcomes may guide future comparative study designs and investigations to promote well-being, integration, and the development of effective social support structures for the diverse needs of Arabic-speaking refugees.

Early tracking and immigrant optimism: a comparative study of educational aspirations among students in disadvantaged schools in Sweden and the Netherlands

Educational tracking affects both the trajectories and the composition of peers that students meet in school. This study compares the effect of significant others on students’ educational aspirations within two transition regimes: the more comprehensive Swedish system and the more stratified Dutch. Separating between doxic and habituated aspirations, I hypothesize that (1) aspirations among students in disadvantaged schools will be lower in the Netherlands than in Sweden; (2) the higher educational aspirations of girls and children of immigrants will disappear when significant others are controlled for; and (3) the positive effect of significant others is more marked among Swedish students than among Dutch due to greater student heterogeneity. The data comes from 3202 students in schools with low average grades in Sweden and the Netherlands. Results were in line with the hypothesis with one important exception. There was a marked difference in habituated aspirations but no difference in doxic aspirations between the Dutch and Swedish students. In conclusion, the findings suggest a) that early tracking systems creates a disconnect between students’ hopes and what they perceive as likely outcomes, and b) that the phenomenon termed “immigrant optimism” and “ethnic capital” reflects unequal access to social capital.

The effects of task instructor status on prospective memory performance in preschoolers

The present study applied a 2 × 2 experimental design to assess prospective memory (PM) development across preschool age and to examine the effect of task instructor status (researcher vs. significant other) on PM performance in 80 preschool children. Participants were required to name pictures (ongoing task [OT]), and to remember to refrain from naming but instead give a different response to certain target cues (PM task). Although the OT was of comparable difficulty for both age groups (as indicated by no performance differences), results still indicated significantly higher PM performance in 5-year-olds than in 3-year-olds, confirming the age-related increase of PM capacities between 3 and 5 years. Furthermore, results showed a performance-enhancing effect of significant others as task instructors on both age-groups. Post-hoc analysis revealed that 3-year-olds instructed by a significant other still performed marginally worse than 5-year-olds instructed by a researcher, underlining the finding that substantial changes of PM capacities take place during early childhood.

You were always on my mind: The importance of “significant others” in the attenuation of retrieval‐induced forgetting in Japan

AbstractResearch on memory has demonstrated that remembering material can cause forgetting of related information, which is known as retrieval‐induced forgetting (RIF). Macrae and Roseveare identified “self” as one of the boundary conditions of this effect in the Western cultural context, showing that RIF was eliminated when material was encoded to be related to the self (known as self‐referential effect), but not to significant others. In this study, we predicted and found that significant others could be another boundary condition in Japanese cultural contexts in which self and agency are more interdependent or conjoint; RIF was observed neither under best‐friend‐related encoding nor under family‐related encoding in Japan. The effect of significant others is found uniquely in Japanese cultural contexts, suggesting that the cultural model of self has significant power in the spontaneous system of memory.

The impact of significant others’ actual appraisals on children’s self-perceptions: What about Cooley’s assumption for children?

The aim of this paper was to study the construction of children’s self-perception relying on Cooley’s hypothesis. More precisely, we were interested in the mediation effect of significant others’ actual appraisal on self-perception by the perception of others’ actual appraisal (i.e., reflected appraisal). First, we argued that this mediation effect would occur in the domains where children have feedback from significant others (here teacher or parents). Second, we took into account two measures of reflected appraisal: reflected appraisal assessed in a classic fashion and appraisal social support assessed with Harter’s scale (1985b). We argued that reflected appraisal assessed in a classic fashion would be a better mediator of the effect of actual appraisal on self-perception by reflected appraisal in comparison to appraisal social support. In order to test these hypotheses, we conducted a study with 126 children (age 8–9), 106 parents and six teachers. The results, taken as a whole, support these hypotheses.

Significant Others and Gambling Treatment Outcomes

This study investigates the effect of significant others on treatment outcomes among treated pathological gamblers. This is a cohort study of individuals who received gambling treatment. Oregon Problem Gambling Services (OPGS) for gamblers and their family members. 4,410 adult gamblers who were discharged from treatment between August, 2001 and April, 2007. OPGS enrollment forms provided gambler gender, age, ethnicity, education level, employment status, gambling-related debt, and whether the gambler had a significant other at the time of enrollment. Termination forms provided information on the type of discharge (successful/unsuccessful) and treatment length (in days). Participation of the gambler's significant other in the family treatment program was identified. Results showed that age, ethnicity, gambling debt, and having a significant other are associated with the odds of successful treatment. Education level moderates the effect of having a significant other on treatment success. Age, ethnicity, education, employment, and having a significant other participate in treatment significantly impacted gamblers' length in treatment. These findings indicate that there may be a benefit to integrating significant others in gambling treatment methods. Significant others may act as social supports for gamblers seeking treatment, and involving loved ones in gambling treatment models may positively affect gambler treatment outcomes.

Racial Differences in the Effects of Significant Others on Students' Educational Expectations

This study compares the impact of the educational aspirations of parents, teachers, close relatives, and peers on students' educational expectations across various racial groups. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study, the authors found that both the levels of significant others' aspirations and the effects of these aspirations vary by students' racial statuses and types of significant others. First, Asian, Hispanic, and African American parents tend to hold higher educational aspirations for their children than do white parents, but the relative influences of Asian and Hispanic mothers and African American fathers on students' educational expectations are smaller than those of their white counterparts. Second, the aspirations of close relatives have greater effects on African American and Hispanic American students' educational expectations. Third, although teachers and friends vary in their aspirations for students, depending on their race, the effects of these aspirations are similar for all racial groups. The results suggest different processes through which familial significant others and other socializing agents influence the educational attitudes of students across racial groups.

Interpersonal Influences and Educational Aspirations in 12 Countries: The Importance of Institutional Context

Research in the United States has found that peers and parents play an important role in shaping students' educational aspirations. Little research has examined the extent to which these findings apply in other countries or whether the role of significant others varies according to the organization of national educational systems. This article examines the effects of peers' and parents' attitudes regarding academic performance on students' educational aspirations in 12 countries. The results indicate that peers and parents influence educational aspirations in countries with relatively undifferentiated secondary schooling, like the United States, while the influence of significant others is negligible in societies with more differentiated secondary education. In these latter systems, it appears that aspirations are largely determined by the type of school the student attends; there is little room for interpersonal effects. The effects of significant others on students' aspirations depend, in large part, on the structural features of the educational systems in which they operate

Mental Representations in Stressful Situations: The Calming and Distressing Effects of Significant Others

According to attachment theory, attachment figures serve a safe haven function in stressful situations by reducing anxiety through physical proximity. The current study tested the effects of cognitive safe haven in adulthood. Thoughts of a significant other who was not physically present were hypothesized to reduce feelings of anxiety in a stressful situation. Participants imagined and described either a significant other or an acquaintance while waiting to take part in a potentially stressful task. An interaction between working models of attachment and experimental condition was found for distress scores. Thinking about a significant other led to lower levels of distress for individuals with a positive model of self, but higher levels of distress for individuals with a negative model of self.

The Impact of Psychological Gender, Gender-Related Perceptions, Significant Others, and the Introducer of Technology upon Computer Anxiety in Students

The gender-related effects of masculinity, femininity, and perceiving technology to be masculinized upon computer anxiety in undergraduates is investigated in addition to the effect of significant others who use computers and the introducer of the technology. The results demonstrate a sex difference, females reporting higher levels of computer anxiety than males. For females, computer anxiety negatively correlated with masculinity, while femininity positively correlated with computer anxiety for males. Sixty-four percent of females agreed that computing was a male activity and that men were better at computing than women. Females who agreed with this latter statement were significantly less computer anxious than females who did not agree with this statement. Additionally, over 40 percent of the variance in female computer anxiety was accounted for by age and having a male friend who used a computer, suggesting that females use males for computer-related support as a strategy to reduce anxiety.

“Faces and Feelings”: A Projective Technique for Measuring Young Children's Self-Esteem

A projective type "Faces and Feelings" measure was designed for use with kindergarten and first grade children. The underlying assumption was that the technique would elicit from this age group self-perceptions of worthwhileness. The unique methodology eliminated the most pervasive problems in self-esteem measurement, and results yielded important information about the effects of significant others on young children's self-esteem. Also, feelings about home and school activities addressed the multifaceted and specificity aspect of the self-esteem construct. Differences between American and Australian children and boys and girls in how Mom, Dad, Teacher, Friend, Home, School, Holiday, Reading, Math made children feel about themselves could be identified using "Faces and Feelings."

Health promotion in context: the effects of significant others on health behavior change.

Maintenance of health behavior change over the long-term has been routinely difficult. One of the reasons for this difficulty is that only individuals' attitudes or behavior are changed, without concomitant support from the social environment. The purpose of this study was to explore several of the ways in which significant others--family members, friends, and coworkers--may affect changes in health behavior. Eighty-four participants in a work site health promotion program were the subjects of the study. Self-reports of health behaviors were gathered at baseline and at the end of the 7-week program; in addition, subjects reported the extent to which significant others generally supported health behavior changes, encouraged them to maintain changes they had made, and made changes in their own health behaviors. Results provide support for the general hypothesis that one individual attempting to change health behavior may be positively influenced by significant others during the course of the change process. Family members were particularly helpful, and overall supportiveness was more helpful than others' change in health habits or encouragement. Behaviors most influenced by others were exercise and fat consumption. Suggestions for future theoretical development, research, and intervention are discussed.

Relative Effects of Significant Others on Self-Evaluation

Despite a long theoretical tradition emphasizing that we come to define and evaluate ourselves on the basis of how we think others view us (i.e., reflected appraisals), little research has attempted to ascertain which others are most important in this process. Lack of research addressing this issue appears to be due to the methodological problem of obtaining estimates of perceived (or actual) appraisals on self-concept measures which are comparable. This paper examines the relative effects of perceived appraisals of teachers, friends and parents on self-evaluation (by sex) for a sample of 1367 high school seniors. The problem of obtaining comparable estimates of these effects is overcome by using identical response formats for the appraisal measures (which requires estimation of measurement error covariances) and correcting these. estimates for differences in scale reliability. The results suggest that sex interacts with perceived appraisals in affecting self-evaluation; the perceived appraisals of friends have the largest impact on self-evaluation among females, while the perceived appraisals of parents have the largest effect on ths outcome measure among males. These results are used to qualify recent theoretical assertions concerning sex differences pertaining to the reflected appraisal process.