Background: Patient information leaflets (PILs) contain all known side effects that could occur in medicine use. The chances of side effect occurring are often noted in odds (‘1 in 10’), combined...Show moreBackground: Patient information leaflets (PILs) contain all known side effects that could occur in medicine use. The chances of side effect occurring are often noted in odds (‘1 in 10’), combined with a term (‘uncommon’). Previous studies show that many patients who have read the PIL tend to overestimate the chance of side effects happening in medicine use. This may lead to decreased treatment adherence and increased anxiety around medicine use. Additionally, in research when participants are asked to estimate chances of an event happening, a trend in participants to answer with “50%” is seen. Research objective: To investigate whether the overestimation of side effects in medicine use is related to subjective numeracy. An additional goal was to investigate whether there is a trend of participants estimating chances as “50%”. Methods: Subjective numeracy was measured using the Subjective Numeracy Scale (SNS). Participants were given patient information about a fictional medicine and its probability of several different side effects. After, they were asked a series of questions about the chance of specific side-effects happening in its use. Results: Little to no difference in health risk estimation was found between the high- or low numeracy groups. However, it is possible that this lack of the expected difference in outcome is caused by an imperfect study design and small, skewed study sample. No answers of “50%” were found. Conclusions: There was no evidence found in the current study to suggest subjective numeracy and health risk calculation are influenced by one another.Show less
Adolescents face several developmental challenges. These physical and emotional challenges can affect their self-confidence and their friendship quality and can cause them a lot of stress. Another...Show moreAdolescents face several developmental challenges. These physical and emotional challenges can affect their self-confidence and their friendship quality and can cause them a lot of stress. Another important challenge during adolescence is achieving success in academic achievement and it is therefore important to find out which factors can influence their learning performance. This research focused on the following research questions: What is the influence of stress on the learning performance? Does self-confidence mediate the effect of friendship quality on learning performance? A total of 119 students between the ages of 12 and 16 completed various online questionnaires, namely the ASQ, which measures the degree of stress; the FQS and the NRI, which measure friendship quality; the RSES, which measures self-confidence; a questionnaire about the grades for the subjects Dutch, English and Mathematics, which measures learning performance. A linear single regression analysis showed that stress has a significant negative effect on adolescents' learning performance. A mediation analysis showed that no significant mediation effect was found, i.e. self-confidence does not mediate the effect of friendship quality on learning performance. The significant negative effect of stress on learning performance may be relevant for developing stress reduction interventions to improve learning performance. The non-significant mediation effect could be due to the situational circumstances of the COVID-19 crisis. For a follow-up study it may be interesting to look at possible gender differences in the investigated variables.Show less
Foreign aid policies vary greatly in their means and ends. Long-term development policies, aiming to promote development and welfare, distinguish from short-term humanitarian policies that respond...Show moreForeign aid policies vary greatly in their means and ends. Long-term development policies, aiming to promote development and welfare, distinguish from short-term humanitarian policies that respond to humanitarian emergency crises. Politicians seem to differ in their preferences, leading scholars to question how these preferences emerge. Existing literature has been focusing on theories of elite competition in explaining why states construct and implement certain policies. However, these theories seem to ignore the concept of political agency, and grant no primacy to the role of ideas and values. This thesis aims to fill this gap by asking how party ideologies influence foreign aid policy preferences. It employs the discursive legitimation model of Van Leeuwen (2008) to analyze Dutch parliamentary debates. Here, it is found that conservative values affect politicians to refer to authorization and rationalization when legitimizing their preferences, while liberal values work through to moral evaluation and story-telling strategies. This confirms that ideas and ideologies do matter for policy preferences.Show less
Introduction: Philosophical Pyrrhonism states that when someone does not suspend judgment (SOJ) about non-evident matters, ataraxia automatically follows and is thus free of fears. Cannabis use...Show moreIntroduction: Philosophical Pyrrhonism states that when someone does not suspend judgment (SOJ) about non-evident matters, ataraxia automatically follows and is thus free of fears. Cannabis use should moderate this because it can influence divergent thinking. Methods: SOJ is measured with 10 self-developed statements (4 argumentative and 6 intuitive) and the GAD7 measures ataraxia. We expected that a high score on SOJ predicted a low score on GAD7. And we predict that more cannabis use leads to a lower SOJ score. The N=207, with 19 missing. The average participant was 21,526 years old and did not use cannabis (49.6%). Of these, 19% were men and 70.4% were women (1.12% falls under other). Results: EFA showed that SOJ loads on 4 components. In the simple regression analysis, the normal distribution assumption was not met, so we analyzed the Adjusted Rsquare. There was no significant effect (R2Adj = .011, p = .071, df: 205). The intuitive questions did have a significant effect (R2Adj = .032, p = .006, df: 205). The multiple regression analysis with the moderator was not significant (R2Adj = .007, p = .117, df: 204). Discussion: SOJ does not significantly predict ataraxia. There is a small effect between SOJ-intuitive and the GAD7. But this effect is most likely due to 4 confounding variables in the SOJ questionnaire (see EFA) and a spread of anxiety due to time pressure. Cannabis use has no influence on this effect. Future research is needed to clarify confounding variables and biases.Show less
One of the most contagious behaviors among humans is contagious yawning (CY). There is an ongoing debate in the current literature about its' functions and underlying mechanisms. Two perspectives...Show moreOne of the most contagious behaviors among humans is contagious yawning (CY). There is an ongoing debate in the current literature about its' functions and underlying mechanisms. Two perspectives prevail, namely the physiological stance, suggesting that CY is merely a homeostatic response. The social stance suggests a solid relation to the social environment, where individual characteristics, such as empathy and theory of mind, play a role in the yawning contagion. To investigate this, we consider the relation between CY and the primary innate mechanism of imitation, (facial) mimicry. Mimicry seems to be indirectly related to CY via empathy. We hypothesize that individuals who mimic more have higher rates of yawning contagion. To test this, forty-one healthy participants partook in a psychophysiological experiment. We measured the physiological activity of facial muscles (with electromyography, EMG), heart rate, skin conductance, and pupil dilation (with an eye-tracker) during computer tasks. We also control for the potential effects of hours of sleep, energy levels and order of condition. After conducting a generalized linear mixed model in R, we did not find a significant effect of facial mimicry on CY. Empathy, theory of mind, sleep and energy levels did not influence CY. However, we found a significance in the order of condition, supporting physiological arousal theories. We suggest additional research by considering other types of mimicry (pupil). We also provide novel detection criteria of CY and the visual representations of EMG activity of the Zygomaticus Major and Corrugator Supercilli during CY. These are crucial for future research, as they have not been previously identified.Show less
Our visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM), a cognitive component responsible for wayfinding and arithmetical challenges, is negatively related to aging according to prior studies. At the same time,...Show moreOur visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM), a cognitive component responsible for wayfinding and arithmetical challenges, is negatively related to aging according to prior studies. At the same time, aging is related to a decrease in sleep quality. However, the triangular relation of these three variables is unknown. This current research aims to identify the direct relation between VSWM and age and sleep. Additionally, we tested if the relation between VSWM and age can indirectly be explained by sleep duration and sleep variability. Finally, the explorative part of the study looked at the effect that sleep duration the night before testing has on VSWM performance. Unique about this study is the use of tappigraphy as a measure for sleep. Tappigraphy is a naturalistic way of deriving data from people’s smartphone touches, allowing for the calculation of sleep duration and variability. The study included 151 participants, 99 for the explorative analysis, who installed an app on their smartphone (tappigraphy measure) and additionally had to complete a VSWM performance task (Corsiblock task). The analysis confirmed the negative relation between age and VSWM, but did not find a relation between sleep duration, variability and sleep the night before testing and VSWM. Additionally, no mediating effect of sleep on the relation between age and VSWM was found. In conclusion, while age and VSWM seemed related the sleep variables of current study did not show any relation to VSWM. This could be partially be explained by the limitations of this study. Future research should focus on constructs of sleep that do not deviate much from current literature. Plus, future research should aim to validate tappigraphy for an older population.Show less
Sinds het einde van de vierde eeuw voor Christus zoeken filosofen naar rust in de geest. Een van deze filosofen was Pyrrho van Elis. Pyrrho zou met zijn filosofische benadering op gebeurtenissen...Show moreSinds het einde van de vierde eeuw voor Christus zoeken filosofen naar rust in de geest. Een van deze filosofen was Pyrrho van Elis. Pyrrho zou met zijn filosofische benadering op gebeurtenissen rust bereiken. Mensen met overmatige angstklachten ervaren onrust. Zij beredeneren uitkomsten op gebeurtenissen negatiever en nemen positieve uitkomsten minder in overweging. Het is bekend dat vrouwen gevoeliger zijn voor angst. Wellicht heeft gender ook invloed op de relatie tussen het oordelen en de mate van ervaren van angst. In deze studie is onderzoek gedaan naar de relatie tussen het uitstellen van oordeel (suspension of judgement; SOJ) en angst en het moderatie effect van gender. Er is online een vragenlijst afgenomen. Een exploratory factor analysis is uitgevoerd op het SOJ-meetinstrument. Een lineaire en multipele regressieanalyses zijn uitgevoerd op totaalscores van SOJ en angst met gender als moderatie effect. De exploratory factor analysis gaf aan dat er een relatie is tussen de variabelen en dat er 4 verschillende onderliggende factoren zijn. De relaties tussen de variabelen zijn sterker wanneer alleen de intuïtieve vragen, vragen met tijdsdruk maar zonder argumentatie, worden meegenomen. Uit de regressieanalyse kwam een niet significant resultaat. Er is geen relatie tussen SOJ en de mate angst, wel is er een kleine relatie tussen de intuïtieve vragen van SOJ en angst gevonden. Uit de multipele regressieanalyse kwam naar verwachting een significant resultaat. Gender bleek de relatie tussen SOJ en angst te versterken. De invloed van SOJ op angst groter bij vrouwen.Show less
Klinische angst komt helaas veel voor. De effectiviteit van de hedendaagse angstbehandelingen voldoet niet. Cognitieve Gedragstherapie is bij minder dan de helft effectief. Er is dus belang bij een...Show moreKlinische angst komt helaas veel voor. De effectiviteit van de hedendaagse angstbehandelingen voldoet niet. Cognitieve Gedragstherapie is bij minder dan de helft effectief. Er is dus belang bij een alternatieve therapie om angst te behandelen. Volgens de filosoof Pyrrho (360 v. Chr.) neemt angst af door niet te oordelen. In dit correlationele onderzoek wordt nagegaan of er een relatie bestaat tussen het uitstellen van oordelen (SOJ) en de mate van angst. Hierbij wordt gekeken of slaapgedrag invloed heeft op deze relatie. 206 Respondenten werden op 10 stellingen gemeten in hoeverre zij het ermee eens of oneens waren. Ook werd een veelgebruikte angstvragenlijst afgelegd, de GAD-7. Er bleek geen significante relatie te bestaan tussen de mate van het uitstellen van oordelen en de mate van Angst. Er bleek wel een significante relatie te bestaan tussen oordelen onder tijdsdruk en mate van angst. Ook oordeelden mensen significant meer op de stellingen met tijdslimiet. Slaap bleek op zichzelf invloed te hebben op mate van angst, maar niet op de relatie tussen SOJ en angst. Om te kunnen vaststellen of een SOJ-behandeling echt zal aanslaan is experimenteel vervolgonderzoek nodig, met een voor en na meting. Omdat in de hedendaagse maatschappij mensen gedwongen zijn om onder continue tijdsdruk besluiten maken, is het bij vervolgonderzoek naar SOJ van belang om rekening te houden met de tijdsdruk component.Show less
This study examines the relationship between the self-determination theory and perceived psychological safety, respectively popularized by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan; and Amy Edmondson. Whereas...Show moreThis study examines the relationship between the self-determination theory and perceived psychological safety, respectively popularized by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan; and Amy Edmondson. Whereas psychological safety has been found to positively contribute to team performance, the self-determination theory is used to assess individual needs and fulfilments, and can be a contributor to individual performance. The aim of this potential relationship is to enable the use and combination of individual-, and team-based strategies more effectively in order to enhance overall performance in organizations. I hypothesized that a significant positive correlation exists between self-determination theory factors and perceived psychological safety, and that the former could be used to predict the latter. The data gathered in an international online survey among people working in the healthcare sector supports that there is a significant positive correlation between the levels of the self-determination theory’s autonomy component and perceived psychological safety. However, when setting up a regression model, I found that the autonomy component of self-determination theory is the only significant predictor for the level of perceived psychological safety. This model explains five percent of the variance in the level of perceived psychological safety, and is thus practically of no use. Secondly, hypothesized that there are no gender-based differences in levels of self-determination theory and perceived psychological safety. In the analysis I found that there are generally no gender- based differences in either of the variables, except for the competence component of self- determination theory. This potentially signifies that men and women prioritize their psychological needs differently, but more research is needed to confirm this. In conclusion, based on the evidence gathered in this study, I cannot conclude that the relationship between self-determination theory and psychological safety can be used in a meaningful way to increase overall performance in the healthcare sector, or other organizations for that matter.Show less
