The exam period can be stressful for students, significantly impacting their lifestyle behaviours. Research indicates that students tend to have poorer diets during exam periods, with stress and...Show moreThe exam period can be stressful for students, significantly impacting their lifestyle behaviours. Research indicates that students tend to have poorer diets during exam periods, with stress and sleep quality potentially influencing this pattern. The decline in diet quality among university students during examinations is a significant social issue that needs to further understanding. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between exam stress and perceived changes in food choice -healthy or unhealthy eating- during an exam period among university students aged 18 to 25 and to assess to what extent this relationship is mediated by sleep quality during an exam period. Utilizing a cross-sectional design, data was collected from 200 Dutch university students who completed three questionnaires, the Examination Stress Scale, a questionnaire about changes in food choice during an exam period and the Regensburg Insomnia Scale. A mediation analysis was conducted using linear regressions in SPSS. The results indicated no significant relationship between exam stress and changes in food choice (β = .042 , p = .558). There was a significant positive relationship between exam stress and poor sleep quality (β = .44, p < .001). No significant association was found between sleep quality and changes in food choice (β = -.02, p < .770). When controlling for sleep quality, exam stress was still not associated with changes in food choices (β = .05, p < .514). Thus, the present study concluded that there is no relationship between exam stress and perceived changes in food choice -healthy or unhealthy eating- among university students ages 18 to 25 and that this relationship is not mediated by sleep quality during exams. However, there was a significant relationship between exam stress and poor sleep quality. Prevention strategies for exam stress and poor sleep should include stress management and education about the importance of sufficient sleep.Show less
Seeking to more profoundly understand the nexus between race and class in Brazil, and comprehend its implications for political consciousness, this thesis centres the question: “How is political...Show moreSeeking to more profoundly understand the nexus between race and class in Brazil, and comprehend its implications for political consciousness, this thesis centres the question: “How is political consciousness of Afro-Brazilian emancipation movements informed by class interests?” In this capacity, class interests are interpreted as racialised consciousness, derived from the neo- Marxist theory of racialisation, a lens that figures prominently in this study. Remaining open to alternative explanations, through exploring discourse of Afro-Brazilian movement Black Coalition for Rights, this study concludes that two forms of consciousness theoretically assumed to be different are both built on similar premises that recognise the role of capitalist structures in processes of racialisation.Show less
Depression and anxiety are increasingly prevalent and often co-occur in adolescence. Symptoms of stress are a commonality of these disorders. However, the role of this commonality in the co...Show moreDepression and anxiety are increasingly prevalent and often co-occur in adolescence. Symptoms of stress are a commonality of these disorders. However, the role of this commonality in the co-occurrence remains unknown. This cross-sectional study investigated the co-occurrence of depression, anxiety, and stress in adolescence using the network psychometrics approach. We obtained our data from the Open-Source Psychometrics Project. The data consisted of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS)-42 (N = 25,086, ages 13-24 years old). We estimated Gaussian Graphical Models (i.e., partial correlations between nodes) and analyzed the bridge nodes. Bridge nodes are nodes of the network that are most influential in connecting the different disorders. We expected the bridge nodes to be the overlapping symptoms found among depression, anxiety, and stress as indicated in the DSM-V. Moreover, to examine whether bridge nodes were consistent across adolescence, we divided our sample into three age groups: early adolescence (ages 13-15, N = 2,354), middle adolescence (ages 16-19, N = 9,476) and late adolescence (ages 20-24, N = 13,256). Our findings of the full sample adolescent network indicated that symptoms of restlessness (stress) and negative mood (depression) served as bridge nodes, which was in line with our hypothesis. Other bridge nodes, not in line with our hypothesis, were symptoms of subjective experience of anxiety (anxiety) and situational anxiety (anxiety). Bridge nodes exclusive to the late adolescent network were: Finding it hard to wind down (stress) and feeling terrified (anxiety). Moreover, relief after anxious situations (anxiety) was uniquely present in the early and late adolescent networks. This study expands the current theoretical knowledge by, for the first time to our knowledge, including stress symptoms in the network models and by comparing the different adolescent age groups using a broad age range (13 to 24 years). Future research should examine whether clinicians can successfully incorporate this knowledge into transdiagnostic treatment interventions, which could contribute to better overall mental health.Show less
Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is a syndrome characterized by a decline in various cognitive domains, including prospective episodic memory (PEM) and executive functions (EF). It has been...Show moreMild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is a syndrome characterized by a decline in various cognitive domains, including prospective episodic memory (PEM) and executive functions (EF). It has been recognized recently that vascular risk factors (VRF), such as hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia, can also have detrimental effects on these cognitive domains. Less research has been conducted on the synergistic influence of MCI and VRF on cognition, with available studies providing mixed results. Moreover, only one study has been conducted on the topic regarding the Greek population, so more research is needed to account for possible differences in ethnicity-related variables. Therefore, we sought to investigate how MCI with comorbid VRF influence PEM and EF, compared to VRF alone and healthy ageing. A sample of 111 Greek older adults participated in the study, divided into three groups: patients with MCI and concomitant VRF, patients with VRF and healthy controls. To assess cognition, tests were used to measure PEM, interference control, flexibility and semantic and phonemic verbal fluency. Data were analysed using MANCOVA, controlling for the educational level of the participants. Results showed that there were no differences between the two pathological groups for any of the measures, but the healthy controls outperformed the MCI+VRF (adjusted mean difference of total score being 8.94, 95 % confidence interval (CI) [3.67, 14.20], p < .001) and the VRF group (adjusted mean difference of total score being 8.20, 95% CI [2.94, 13.46], p < .001) in the semantic fluency task. Indeed, literature has shown that both MCI and VRF affect the integrity of frontal networks, which mainly support EF function. Methodological differences, such as the older age of the sample and the simplicity of the PEM task, ethnic differences and limitations in the statistical analysis can possibly account for the discrepancies with previous studies. All in all, this study suggests that there are no differences in cognition between VRF and MCI+VRF patients, while emphasizing the need for and more research into the cognitive consequences of comorbid MCI and VRF both in the Greek population and internationally.Show less
Prosocial behavior can result in favorable developmental consequences in adolescence. Therefore, gaining insight into prosocial behavior is important, so we can assist adolescents. However,...Show moreProsocial behavior can result in favorable developmental consequences in adolescence. Therefore, gaining insight into prosocial behavior is important, so we can assist adolescents. However, previous studies on prosocial did not consider that prosocial behavior takes effort, such as holding the door open for another individual. Additionally, they did not explore whether cognitive and physical effort, and different effort levels, lead to variations in prosocial behavior among adolescents. Therefore, this study examined whether there are differences in cognitive and physical effort-based prosocial behavior in adolescents aged 9-12 across three different effort levels - low, medium, and high. In addition, age was taken into account as covariate. Effort levels referred to how much effort one had to exert in order to complete a specific task. 41 participants completed two experimental effort-based prosocial tasks. The cognitive task involved reversed digit spans, and the physical task was based on the Effort-Expenditure for Rewards Task, where the participant was required to tap on a predetermined number of boxes. The research question was investigated using a two-way repeated measures ANCOVA. Furthermore, an exploratory analysis was done using a three-way repeated measures ANCOVA, to investigate if adding the recipient as a within-subject variable would impact the results of the repeated measure ANCOVA. The main analysis revealed no effect of effort level, effort type, or interaction between these two. Age was not influential in the analysis either. The absence of differences highlighted the potential generalizability of neural mechanisms, the possible role of empathy as a moderator, and considered cognitive and physical effort-based prosocial behavior as constructs that vary across situations. However, the not-significant outcome could also be explained by the not-significant main effect of the recipient, found in the exploratory analysis. This study represented a new area of research that explored the nuances of effort-related prosocial behavior in adolescents. From our findings, we speculated that both kinds of prosocial behavior are equally beneficial, and result in favorable developmental consequences. Future research should investigate whether the findings are generalizable for mid and late adolescents and other forms of prosocial behavior.Show less
Dynamic testing (DT) is a method of testing that includes the provision of a form of feedback and guidance to the testing procedure, and can be used to examine children’s potential for learning in...Show moreDynamic testing (DT) is a method of testing that includes the provision of a form of feedback and guidance to the testing procedure, and can be used to examine children’s potential for learning in various cognitive functions, including working memory (WM). Furthermore, intrinsic motivation (IM) seems to be related to enhanced WM performance and learning, especially in feedback-contexts. However, research on the effectiveness of DT of WM in this age group, as well as the influence of IM, is lacking. Therefore, the current thesis aimed to study the effectiveness of our DT of WM, as well as the influence of IM. The study had a pretest-training-posttest design with two groups. The experimental group received training, whereas control group did not. The sample included 100 typically developing primary school children between 8 and 9 years old (Mage = 8.46, SD = 0.50, 51% girls). Contrary to previous findings, our results showed a decrease from pretest to posttest in WM performance in the control group and a slight increase in performance in the experimental group. Moreover, the children’s IM did not significantly influence the WM improvements when tested dynamically. The findings suggest that the training element in our DT could have protected against the decrease in WM from pretest to posttest and that IM did not have a significant influence on these results. These findings contribute to the field of research by highlighting the importance of factors such as sustained attention and time-on-task effects in the prevention of this decline in WM performance during DT. Besides these factors, future research should look into the effects of age, cognitive load and engagement on the DT of WM and IM to gain a better understanding on how to improve its effectiveness, especially in 8- to 9-year-old children. Further exploration could aid educational professionals in implementing the dynamic approach and supporting children’s learning processes and cognitive development.Show less
For children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), social contact can be particularly challenging, which can impact their level of peer acceptance. This study aimed to explore the relationship...Show moreFor children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), social contact can be particularly challenging, which can impact their level of peer acceptance. This study aimed to explore the relationship between social contact and peer acceptance among children with ASD. We hypothesized that children with ASD had fewer contacts and were less accepted by peers than children without ASD. Furthermore, we hypothesized that increased social contact was associated with greater levels of peer acceptance for both children with and without ASD, but less strong for children with ASD in comparison to children without ASD. With a novel approach, this study documented the amount of social contact and the level of peer acceptance of 95 children in two special education schools in the Netherlands. The sample included 46 children with (Mage = 10.2, SD = 1.0) and 49 children without ASD (Mage = 11.3, SD=1.0), with an age range from 8 to 13 years, who were observed through proximity tags to measure social contact, and the LITOP questionnaire was utilized to assess the level of peer acceptance. MANOVA was employed to investigate whether children with ASD had fewer contacts and were less accepted than their peers without ASD and the hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the potential relationship between social contact and peer acceptance and. Surprisingly, children with ASD engaged in contact with more partners and were more accepted than children without ASD, despite the expectedly shorter duration of contact. Moreover, no significant relation was found between social contact and peer acceptance, for the two groups alike. These findings indicate that peer acceptance may not solely depend on the quantity of contact, but rather on the quality and context. Consequently, it is advised that educators facilitate structured social activities to facilitate finding similar peers and shared interests. Further research is required to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the contact and its emotional aspects, with the aim of developing more effective strategies for enhancing peer acceptance among children with ASD. This could be achieved through a combination of quantitative measurements, such as proximity tags and qualitative measurement, including observationsShow less
