The effect of the concept of individual agency on the estimation of health among different agecohorts

The understanding of determinants of health in health policy and health promotion has shifted from a traditional focus on lifestyle (nutrition, exercises, addiction), toward a richer multidimensional approach. This shift has been strongly influenced by a body of research in the human capabilities’ approach, which emphasizes the role of person’s agency, freedom, and opportunities. Using survey data on 18–52 years old Lithuanian representatives, this paper explores the relationship between personal agency and subjective health perception as well as how it varies depending on the age and post-materialistic values. Human agency refers to the capability of an individual to control personal destiny and make choices to fulfill goals set autonomously (A. Giddens). The results show that agency is important factor of subjective health perception in Lithuania. The fact that capabilities that measure agency are aligned with subjective health measures support the view of human development as an integral process.

The internal structure of the ways of performing learning actions and the stages of students’ personal agency development

The topical problem of pedagogical psychology is to identify the conditions and factors of students’ personal agency development. One of the ways to solve the problem is to build adequate mathematical models. The purpose of the study is to justify the use of multimediator analysis in modelling a fractal psychological and pedagogical system so as to describe the ways and stages of students’ agency development in the course of the study. It is hypothesized that ways of performing learning actions are considered as elements of the stages of learners’ personal agency formation. And in this function they play a twofold role: they act both as predictors of the agency development stages and mediators that determine the interconnection between the ways and stages of the personal agency development. The test of the multimediator analysis was carried out in three groups of 2nd–4th-year university students, studying full-time (57 people; average age 20.6 years, Sd = 2.4 years; all females) and two groups of second-year students of college (40 people, 39 of them are boys, aged 17.5, Sd = 0.71). The practical application of the research results makes it possible to identify both the internal structure of the ways of performing learning activities and the stages of students’ personal agency development. The prospects of using multimediator analysis with the help of modern statistical packages are shown.

Perception of the city in different groups of children residing in a megapolis: comparative analysis

The problem of interaction of preschool children with the urban environment is analyzed. The study appears to be of relevance due to its focus on children’s personal agency investigated through their perception of objects and phenomena of the social and physical space of the megalopolis. The study aims to perform a comparative analysis of how groups of children who differ in their modality and orientation of their attitude to the urban environment perceive the city. Presumably, there are differences in the perception of the megalopolis by preschool children. It is also assumed that there is correlation between the attitude of children to the city and the degree of their personal agency properties. The study involved 115 children aged 5.5 to 6.5 years old, living in full families, in two districts of Moscow (58% of them are girls, 42% of them are boys). The experts were teachers of preschool institutions attended by the respondents. Psychodiagnostic tools were used including a semi-structured interview, a drawing test "The City Where I Live", the methodology "Peculiarities of Manifestation of the Preschoolers’ Will" (R.M. Gevorkyan), the scale "autonomy" of the methodology "Typology of Subject Regulation of the Child" (S. V. Khusainova and G. S. Prygin), and a questionnaire. The results of the research demonstrate that children differ in their orientation and modality of attitude to objects and phenomena of the social, natural, objective and spatial environment of the city, and in their attitude to environmental problems of the city and orientation towards their solution. The selectivity and scope of the perception of the urban environment depends on the meaning which children attribute to these objects and phenomena, as well as on personal experience of interacting with them. The importance of the social environment of the city is associated with children’s pronounced independence and self-control; the negative modality of attitude to objects and phenomena of the social environment is associated with reduced self-control of behavior. The increased attention of children to the environmental problems of the city is due to the upbringing by grandparents. The research shows that in conditions of limited interaction with objects and phenomena of the urban environment, children compensate for the lack of experience with fantasies about a fabulous and ideal city. The results of the study can be used to identify priorities in the field of social policy in relation to children at the stage of early socialization, as well as when making decisions on optimizing the urban environment which is friendly to children.

‘Informed’, ‘active’ and ‘engaged’? Understanding and enacting information literacy from a UK citizenship perspective

Information literacy (IL) has been considered by Library and Information Studies (LIS) research and praxis to be vital in helping citizens be ‘informed’, ‘active’ and ‘engaged’ within society. LIS discourse has explored different conceptions of citizenship and its relationship with IL within the paradigm of liberal democratic societies. Critical IL approaches have in turn promoted a citizenship of personal agency, empowerment, challenging the status quo and the pursuit of social justice, as well as focusing on what has been termed ‘political literacy’. However, critical information literacy has also problematised some of the approaches to citizenship found in LIS discourse. Despite the complexity of the subject, empirical study into these issues is still severely lacking. This research moves to start addressing this need by investigating how IL is understood and enacted from the perspective of UK citizenship. Using a qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews with five UK citizens based in Oxford, UK, in the summer of 2019, it set out to establish the relationship between IL and citizenship in a personal context. It was found to be understood and enacted through the development of socially-constructed personal citizenship information landscapes, oriented to a personal sense of citizenship, agency, motivation and empowerment. These personal landscapes challenge some of the established IL paradigms of ‘informed’, ‘active’ and ‘engaged’ citizens, as well as related concepts of information ‘wealth’ and ‘poverty’. They also raise questions of the role of personal ethics in decision making as citizens and potential tensions with ‘acceptable’ norms. These findings help to further problematise the dynamic between IL and citizenship, and challenge LIS research and praxis not just to promote specific values and goals, but also to work towards a greater understanding of the personal contexts shaping that dynamic.

Age, Attitudes to Aging, and Identity in Older Canadian Women

The life course perspective emphasizes social structure, personal agency, and their interdependencies (Settersten et al., 2020), serving as the theoretical framework for this study. Given stereotypical societal views of gender and aging (e.g., Sontag, 1979), physical aging is often the focus when examining women’s aging attitudes and concomitant changes in a sense of personal identity. Additionally, studies of midlife women have found relationships between age and identity (e.g., Stewart et al., 2001). Using quantitative and qualitative data, the present study examines associations between age, personal identity, and attitudes to physical, psychological and social aging in older Canadian women (N = 190, Mage = 70.38). Results show that while attitudes to physical aging contribute to identity maintenance, attitudes to social and psychological aging are also important for older women’s identity maintenance. Interactions between age and attitudes to aging associated with personal identity are discussed with reference to the life course perspective.

Neoliberal Economic Policies’ Effects on Perceptions of Social Justice and Sociopolitical Participation in Portugal

Contemporary societies challenge long-standing projects of the “good society” and social equality through neoliberal economic policies. Social forms of uncertainty generated by financial deprivation, precarity, and inequality seem to have effects on agency and coping and so socioeconomic and psychological consequences. This study aims to test these relationships, as well as a hypothesis on the potential impact of these constructs on beliefs of sociopolitical control and social dominance, which have implications for social justice. A mediation model explores the effects of financial access (the manifest benefit of work) on psychosocial uncertainty (which reflects the perception of uncertainty in the social context and the experience of its consequences within work, relationships, and the adoption of self-defeating beliefs) and on emotional coping strategies towards uncertainty, and their effects on personal agency, sociopolitical control (SPC), and social dominance orientation (SDO). Data are derived from a study of 633 participants in Portugal. Although personal agency is influenced by financial access and psychosocial uncertainty, it is not proved as a significant mediator for SPC and SDO. Nevertheless, financial access, psychosocial uncertainty, and emotional coping significantly contribute to the model, supporting the hypothesis that financial access protects against psychosocial uncertainty. Both have an impact on SPC and SDO. Therefore, financial deprivation and psychosocial uncertainty potentially contribute to extremism and populism in societies characterised by socially created forms of uncertainty. Implications of results for psychological intervention, namely in vocational/professional counselling, are discussed.

Transition to Non-Offender Self-Narratives: The Emotional Closure Model of Desistance

<p>Although studies have shown that a transition from an ‘offender’ to a ‘non-offender’ self-narrative appears to be associated with desistance, the psychological mechanisms involved in this transition phase have not been explored adequately. This may be because desistance research has primarily been conducted from a criminological perspective, thus social factors (e.g., employment or relationships) have been the focus of enquiry. What little psychologically focused forensic literature there is, is held back by the dominance of the cognitive perspective. Because of this, the role that emotions may play in psychological changes that must take place in order for a person to successfully transition to a non-offender is overlooked. Advances in clinical neuroscience research are increasingly highlighting the significance of emotional processes in psychological functioning. In this thesis I introduce a psychological model of self-narrative by Peter Goldie, who incorporates emotions into his description of the psychological processes that constitute self-narratives. Importantly, Goldie also describes a mechanism of transition from a maladaptive (non-agentic) to an adaptive (agentic) self-narrative. Application of Goldie’s conceptualisation may help to understand how a person who commits offences due to a lack of agency could increase their personal agency and desist. However, as I discuss in chapter one, some persons who commit offences act in a goal-directed manner and thus not due to a lack of personal agency. I will extend Goldie’s conceptualisation of this transition mechanism in order to apply it to the self-narratives of offenders. The adaptation I make to the conceptualisation, which I term, the Emotional Closure Model (ECM), crucially, may explain the transition from offender to non-offender self-narratives for those who both lack agency as well as those who lack motivation to desist. Improved understanding of the psychological mechanisms involved in the transition phase to non-offender self-narratives will have far reaching implications for psychological treatment programmes.</p>