In the Netherlands, more than 1 million people have accumulated debts. They can go to debt counseling to receive help for their financial problems. The current research investigated what type of...Show moreIn the Netherlands, more than 1 million people have accumulated debts. They can go to debt counseling to receive help for their financial problems. The current research investigated what type of help participants prefer to offer to a person in debt, focusing on two types of help: budget coaching, where debtors are being coached to keep their autonomy, and is often offered to people in early debt stages. We defined this as autonomy-oriented help. With budget management, the finances are taken off hands to relieve the debtor from stress, which is often offered to people in late debt stages. We defined this as dependency-oriented help. Previous research showed that people need dependency-oriented help when their financial stress causes cognitive impairments, we think this is also needed in an intermediate debt stage, than only in a late debt stage. We investigated if participants empathized with the help- seeker, would acknowledge the amount of stress, and would offer dependency-oriented help in an intermediate stage. Therefore, we manipulated the three debt stages; early, intermediate, and late, and manipulated perspective-taking. In this experiment, participants (N = 374) were randomly assigned to the manipulation conditions, read a scenario about a debtor in need, and filled out a questionnaire. We found that participants indicated acknowledging the stress of the help-seeker, but by taking perspective, participants indicated offering more autonomy- oriented help than dependency-oriented help. With this research, we suggest the debt counseling of the Netherlands to provide debt counselors the knowledge about debts, stress, and cognitive functioning.Show less
Financial scarcity forms a heavy burden, both on individuals and society. Being unable to meet your basic needs can threaten autonomy. Coping styles determine how individuals handle this adversity...Show moreFinancial scarcity forms a heavy burden, both on individuals and society. Being unable to meet your basic needs can threaten autonomy. Coping styles determine how individuals handle this adversity and contribute to the likelihood of help acceptance. The current study investigated the moderating effect of problem-focused coping on the association between implicit need for autonomy and help acceptance. British participants completed a survey consisting of the Picture Story Exercise, a help acceptance questionnaire and the Brief-Cope. The study showed that neither need for autonomy, nor problem-focused coping is predictive for help acceptance. Furthermore, problem-focused coping did not moderate the association between need for autonomy and help acceptance. Exploratory analyses indicated that emotion-focused or avoidant coping did not moderate this association. Future studies should include indebted participants to reliably investigate the complexity of financial scarcity. Such findings could provide insights for debt agencies on effective help for people facing (financial) adversity.Show less
Increasing attention is being paid to health inequalities in the Netherlands. Policymakers and government agencies are looking for methods to reduce the health gap, especially in order to increase...Show moreIncreasing attention is being paid to health inequalities in the Netherlands. Policymakers and government agencies are looking for methods to reduce the health gap, especially in order to increase the health of people in risk groups. People with a lower level of education and low food literacy appear to be an important risk group for food-related health issues. Nudging has been shown to be an easy and effective way to promote healthy behavior. For this reason, this study investigated whether the level of education and food literacy influence the effectiveness of default nudges in encouraging healthy food choices. An online supermarket experiment was used with a default and control condition. In the default condition, a healthy food product was displayed larger and preselected to investigate whether this option was chosen more often. A total number of 229 participants took part in the online supermarket experiment and completed the Self-Perceived food Literacy scale beforehand. Default nudges were found to have a positive effect on stimulating the proportion of nudged healthy products, but no interaction effect was found for different levels of education and food literacy. In conclusion, nudges can be used effectively, but no difference in effectiveness was found for different levels of education and food literacy. However, one nudge is not going to make the difference in reducing health inequalities. Yet, nudges do have promising effects and can contribute to stimulating healthy food choices one step at a time.Show less
The present research aims to examine the effect that different levels of perceived financial stress (PIFS) and trait hedonic capacity (THC) have on one's ability to enjoy a hedonic activity. We...Show moreThe present research aims to examine the effect that different levels of perceived financial stress (PIFS) and trait hedonic capacity (THC) have on one's ability to enjoy a hedonic activity. We examined (1) whether people with more perceived financial stress will prefer and enjoy hedonic activities, which are less expensive, and (2) we examined whether this effect is moderated by one's trait hedonic capacity. This moderation was thought to be present because THC explains our ability to block out intrusive thoughts (like financial stress) and successfully pursue a hedonic goal. In an exploratory analysis, we examined (3) people higher in trait hedonic capacity are less likely to have intrusive thoughts (cognitive conflict) and therefore enjoy a hedonic activity more than people low in trait hedonic capacity. The Participants (N = 129) were presented with The Trait Hedonic Capacity Scale (THC) and The Psychological Inventory of Financial Scarcity (PIFS) followed by two dinner situations, one being a cheap condition and a second being an expensive condition followed by 5 questions about their enjoyment of the activity and 2 questions about their intrusive thoughts. The results indicate no main effect of perceived financial stress on enjoyment. There was however a main effect of PIFS on the amount of intrusive thoughts, where higher PIFS resulted in more intrusive thoughts. THC was a strong predictor of enjoyment for those in the low PIFS group but not in the high PIFS group. There also was a significant main effect of THC on the amount of intrusive thoughts of a participant where higher THC resulted in people having less intrusive thoughts.Show less
Teachers in kindergarten are confronted with many differences between emergent literacy skills children have developed before going to primary school. Since these skills are the foundation of the...Show moreTeachers in kindergarten are confronted with many differences between emergent literacy skills children have developed before going to primary school. Since these skills are the foundation of the development of reading skills, it is important to promote emergent literacy in kindergarten. E- Prent&ABC is a method to improve emergent literacy that combines animated e-books with print referencing and the 4-cycle-model for word development during classroom book reading. A previous study has demonstrated that e-Prent&ABC enhances vocabulary and phonological awareness of kindergartners. However, kindergartners with problematic learning behavior do not benefit from these positive effects. Therefore, the current study adds behavior regulating elements to e-Prent&ABC to improve the learning behavior of kindergartners with problematic learning behavior and to help them benefit more from classroom book reading. This quasi-experimental study explores how whole-class reading with the expanded method e-Prent&ABC+ can enhance learning behavior, vocabulary, and phonological awareness of kindergartners with problematic learning behavior. 60 kindergartners (30 with and 30 without problematic learning behavior) from nine kindergarten groups participated in three conditions (control condition, e-Prent&ABC, and e-Prent&ABC+). Ultimately, the results demonstrate that both kindergartners with and without problematic learning behavior showed the most positive learning behavior during the control condition instead of during reading with e-Prent&ABC+ or e-Prent&ABC . Furthermore, the results confirm previous findings by showing that e-Prent&ABC effectively promotes both vocabulary and phonological awareness of kindergartners. The added elements in e-Prent&ABC+ did not better improve learning behavior and emergent literacy than e- Prent&ABC does. Compared to e-Prent&ABC, the vocabulary of the kindergartners was even smaller after reading with e-Prent&ABC+ . In spite of several limitations, this research has shown that animated e-books can be used in combination with the 4-cycle-model during whole-class book reading to create a rich literacy environment in which emergent literacy skills can be promoted simultaneously.Show less
This study examined differences in prosocial giving behavior of gifted and nongifted young adolescents towards five targets (a friend, disliked person, a stranger, and the participant’s father and...Show moreThis study examined differences in prosocial giving behavior of gifted and nongifted young adolescents towards five targets (a friend, disliked person, a stranger, and the participant’s father and mother), and the effects of perspective taking. 93 Dutch students between the ages of 9 and 12 were assessed using the Perspective Taking scale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and the Prosocial Donation task, a donation game in which participants divided ten coins between themselves and various targets. Findings showed that gifted young adolescents showed less prosocial giving towards their mother than nongifted young adolescents. No difference in prosocial giving behavior was found between gifted and nongifted young adolescents towards the other targets (a friend, a disliked person, a stranger, and the participant’s father). Gifted young adolescents overall donated an equal number of coins as their nongifted peers, despite differentiating differently across targets. Furthermore, participants showed more prosocial giving behavior towards friends than strangers, which supports previous findings involving prosocial giving behavior and ingroup-outgroup differentiation. Contrary to expectations, perspective taking did not have an effect on the level of prosocial giving in young adolescents – neither gifted nor nongifted, and no difference in perspective taking was found between gifted and nongifted young adolescents. These findings show that gifted young adolescents are not so dissimilar from their nongifted peers. Our results challenge false stereotypes of gifted youth as possessing characteristic social and emotional problems. This study expanded on previous research by including giftedness and examining prosocial giving behavior to parents. Future research into prosocial giving behavior of early adolescents could include even more detailed assessments of interpersonal relationships between participants and their parents.Show less
This study aims to determine whether there is a relationship between a leader's personality and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Firstly, I created a theoretical framework regarding this case,...Show moreThis study aims to determine whether there is a relationship between a leader's personality and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Firstly, I created a theoretical framework regarding this case, after which I used the Profiler Plus program to measure the Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA) of Obama and Trump. Finally, the extent to which leadership style played a role in the full withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan under Trump that did not take place under Obama will be determined. This thesis is an addition to the LTA theory and could be a stepping stone for further research around leadership traits in combination with foreign policy decision-making.Show less
Cooperation is an important part of living in a society and much research has been done to investigate the factors that promote cooperation between individuals. These studies report that...Show moreCooperation is an important part of living in a society and much research has been done to investigate the factors that promote cooperation between individuals. These studies report that cooperation could be influenced by factors like emotional facial expressions of happiness, and embarrassment, however, these are more for the adult population, and not enough for children. This study aimed to investigate the role of gender (boys and girls) as well as facial expressions of positive affect and embarrassment in the cooperative choices of children. To achieve these three hypotheses were drawn. Hypothesis one was cooperation would be higher among females than males. With the gender of the dyads randomized. Hypothesis two was, cooperation will be more when there are higher levels of positive affect. Hypothesis three was, cooperation will be more when there are higher levels of embarrassment. The participants were dyads of N = 80 children with ages ranging from 8 to 12 years old. They all performed an introduction task where half of them were asked to introduce themselves face-to-face and the other half with a black screen between them, thereby creating two visibility conditions: invisible and visible. Afterward, they played the modified version one-shot prisoner’s dilemma game. A chi-square test of independence was used to analyze hypothesis one. The results showed that there was no significant difference in cooperation between boys and girls, χ2 (1, N = 80) = .189, p = .664. A binomial logistic regression was used to analyze hypotheses two and three. The result showed that increased positive affect and embarrassment had no significant influence on the cooperative choices of children, with positive affect B=.05 SE=.18 OR = 1.06, p = .772 95% CI = [.74, 1.15] and embarrassment B=.05 SE=.07 OR = 1.05, p = .494, 95% CI = [0.91, 1.20] Therefore, it was concluded that although the results did not support the hypotheses, there may be several factors that could contribute to this, such as this study being done in real-life face-to-face settings versus the previous studies done with computer simulations or manipulations. Keywords: cooperation, emotional facial expression, positive affect, embarrassment, gender.Show less
