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Negative perceptions within parent–child relationship has become a focus of research in recent psychological literature. Keeping this in view, the current paper aims to study how parental psychological maltreatment and negative cognitive style connect with psychological distress among Pakistani adolescents? Three hundred and seventy adolescents including 200 boys and 170 girls took part in the study. The mean age was 16.11 (SD = 1.54). Participants from different educational institutes filled in Psychological Maltreatment Experience Scale, Adolescent Cognitive Style Questionnaire – Short Form (Adapted version) and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale. Findings of the study indicated that both parental psychological maltreatment and negative cognitive styles have strong association with psychological distress. The results emphasize the role of negative cognition in parent–child relationship and importance of reducing the hostile effects of parental maltreatment on youth's mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The alteration of an individual's lifestyle and the adoption of healthy behaviours have been shown to be effective in combating a majority of the major symptoms of depression. While there are several mHealth applications that use behaviour change to reduce depressive symptoms, they are often not grounded in behaviour change theory and display a lack of understanding regarding the specific factors that lead to behaviour change. Therefore, there is a need to test innovative strategies to tackle the issue. One such strategy is the use of behaviour change theories to design mHealth applications that use persuasive prompts to assist in 'prompting' the user to adopt healthier behaviours. In this paper, we present the design of persuasive prompts and an mHealth application to induce behavioural change, followed by the results of two studies: (i) an acceptability study that tested the acceptability of the persuasive prompts and (ii) a usability study of the mHealth application. The results show that there is a significant difference in which behaviour change theories users prefer based on their level of depression and that overall, users have a positive perception of the application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Current research aims to identify factors that affect the occupational safety climate in university laboratories despite their perception as low-risk areas compared to industrial environments. Methods. A safety climate survey was conducted in science laboratories across various engineering universities in Pakistan. The survey questionnaire was administered to 406 personnel, and a quantitative method for analysis was selected to examine the socio-demographic variables. A 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) was used to perceive responses from participants. Additionally, a scale reliability test was conducted, and multivariate analysis of variance was performed to determine the relationship between selected dependent and independent variables. Results. The study found an overall safety climate score of 3.16 ± 0.55, indicating a moderate to high perception of safety on a scale of 1–5. Parameters such as role in the laboratory, departments/disciplines, accident experience and safety training significantly affected the safety climate score, while gender, age group, duration in university and accident witnessing did not. Conclusion. Upper management involvement, safety communication and direct supervision are crucial for improving the safety climate of university laboratories. The study recommends the consideration of the identified significant safety climate dimensions in laboratory safety policy-making at academic institutes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leaders' integrity is a quality of influential leaders and a vital concept in organizational psychology; corporate researchers suggest that leaders' integrity and psychological empowerment should be a central theme in business leadership studies. The main objective of the current study was to examine the impact of perceived leaders' integrity on employees' engagement and mediating role of psychological-empowerment in employees. It was hypothesized that i) there would be a significantly positive relationship between perceived leader's integrity, psychologicalempowerment, and employee's engagement in employees; ii) Psychological-empowerment would mediate the relationship between perceived leader's integrity and employee's engagement in employees. We took a sample of (N = 320) employees from various government departments of Pakistan with the age range of (25–60) years. The sample was selected through purposive sampling technique. The study findings suggested that perceived leaders' integrity positively correlates with psychological-empowerment and employee's engagement. However, it is also revealed that psychological-empowerment fully mediates the relationship between perceived leaders' integrity and employee's engagement. Furthermore, demographic variables differed between study variables in employees. The current study's findings add to the literature about perceived leaders' integrity and employee's engagement. Organizations should take care of their employees' -psychological-empowerment and have complete insight into leaders'-integrity which help to enhance employee's-engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with elevated materialistic values often report reduced life satisfaction. To understand this, our study investigated if gratitude and the spiritual jihad mindset, denoting the aspiration to bond with God through spiritual challenges, mediate this relationship. We surveyed 404 Muslim young adults (191 men; 213 women; aged 19-32) from Pakistan. Findings revealed a negative correlation between materialism and gratitude, spirituality, and life satisfaction. Conversely, gratitude, spirituality, and life satisfaction positively correlated with each other. Importantly, spiritual jihad was a negative mediator between materialism and life satisfaction, while gratitude was not significant in this role. Thus, for Muslim Pakistani university students, chasing materialistic ambitions may adversely impact well-being by neglecting spiritual closeness to Allah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feminist theory is a broadly employed framework for comprehending gender-based intimate partner abuse, psychological and physical health problems. This perspective helps to figure out the role of resilience to assist and understand this complicated relationship between intimate partner abuse and psychological issues. Apart from these hypothetical recommendations, there were limited empirical studies on this topic. The present research focuses on investigating the moderating role of resilience between physical health issues, intimate partner abuse, and psychological problems among married couples. This study applied three scales to married couples (husbands, n = 103; wives, n = 103) sample residing in the same homes in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. This comparative research indicated significant mean differences associated with physical health issues, intimate partner abuses, resilience, stress, and anxiety with depression symptoms. This study tested the proposed model, and findings specify that intimate partner abuse designates the link to a lower level of anxiety, and reveals a higher level of resilience in the husband. The findings are insightful and support the broad feminist theory. The results provide useful empirical and theoretical contributions to the literature, and conclusions uncover the antecedents of psychopathology among married couples. The findings contribute to a broader discourse about the married couple's health issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to translate and adapt the WHO-Five Wellbeing Index (WHO-5) into the Urdu language and then determine its psychometric properties. Male participants (N = 201) between 18 and 45 years old (M = 29.56 years, SD = 7.80) were recruited from substance use disorder treatment centers and hospitals in Karachi... Participants completed a Personal Information Form, The WHO-5, Self-Esteem Scale, and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale in Urdu. The Cronbach's alpha for the WHO Wellbeing Index (Cronbach's alpha =.80) is adequate. Similarly, both the Self Esteem (Cronbach's alpha =.86) and the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale total (Cronbach's alpha =.94) had adequate internal consistency. Further, Cronbach's alpha for subscales (depression =.88, anxiety =.91, stress =.82) was also adequate. A higher level of well-being is significantly positively associated with self-esteem (r =.275, p <.001) and negatively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress (r = −.307, p <.001). The Urdu version of WHO-5 has is a reliable measure for investigating well-being in male patients receiving treatment for substance use disorders in Pakistan who speak Urdu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Converging visual behavioural and attentional allocation studies within neuroscience have shown culture influences the processing of visual information obtained from the visual field. While attending (reviewing) a visual scene, individuals from a collectivist culture attend more to the context (background) compared to those from an individualist culture who view more the focal object. This highlights the effect of cultural conditioning in terms of holistic and analytical processing of visual information. This study aimed to demonstrate these principles in the context of an assistive product, a wheelchair, highlighting the key visual elements of the form; and, how a congruent background (hospital room) or incongruent (athletics track) influenced cultural bias during visual processing and assigned meaning. A combination of research methods (Semantic Differential Scale and eye-tracking) was used to triangulate the results. A total of 126 adult student participants, (Pakistani/collectivist, n = 57) and the (UK/individualist, n = 69), viewed a visual presentation of a wheelchair with semantically congruent and then an incongruent background and responded via an online questionnaire. A sub-sample completed the survey whilst monitored via eye-tracking. Pakistani respondents used shorter and less frequent fixations on the foreground compared to the responses of their counterparts (UK respondents). The wheel of the wheelchair was highlighted as the prominent form by both groups. Results demonstrate a culture-influenced pattern of visual processing even when the product was displayed against a semantically incongruent background. The findings from this study also validate and extend the outcomes of similar studies revealing a more specific, yet consistent, cultural effect on individuals' visual perception. Finally, the efficacy of triangulated research methods in their relationship to exploring the AT product's semantics was discussed. The knowledge of AT products' semantics will be significant to investigate, for their improved social acceptance, particularly when considered from a diverse cultural standpoint. A model of best practice, focussing on semantics manipulation, will provide AT product designers, practitioners, and those involved in their marketing, Internationally, with a suitable process/tool to positively reframe the perception of these devices. Finally, this research will help product and industrial designers to consider cultural cognitive styles in the design of products for the better adoption of products within the global marketplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aging people in Pakistan are a growing population who face a shortage of old age home facilities. There is critical need to develop state-run old age homes for poor older people but to plan them while identifying protective factors for life satisfaction in currently housed residents. Our sample consists of 139 aging residents from six public sector old age homes across four cities. The qualitative results highlight barriers to life satisfaction and coping strategies of the aging population. Bivariate regression results show that aging residents have higher odds for life satisfaction when they are content with: (i) quality of life overall (AOR 5.99; 95% CI: 2.38–7.06); (ii) health (AOR 2.50; 95% CI: 1.02–4.14); (iii) finances (AOR 1.98; 95% CI: 0.67–3.72); (iv) religious and spiritual associations (AOR 1.90; 95% CI: 0.81–2.45); and (v) opportunities for learning (AOR 1.02; 95% CI: 0.42–2.41). We conclude with four salient social policy recommendations to improve life satisfaction for older populations living in old age homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the correlation between social media usage and psychological wellbeing among university students as well as the moderating role of gender between this relationship. A conceptual model was developed to empirically test and explore the effects of five social media needs derived from the Uses and Gratification theory on Ryff's six dimensions of psychological wellbeing. Structural equation modeling analysis results revealed that social media needs vary between males and females. The significant moderating effect of gender was thus found on the relationship between social media needs and psychological wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates and compares online banking (OB) acceptance in the cultures of Pakistan and Turkey by employing the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) integrated with perceived credibility to predict customers' behavioral intentions (BI) and their usage of online banking. This study further investigates the moderation influence of five cultural dimensions on customers' usage behavior (UB). Using an online survey, data were collected through a questionnaire from 322 bank customers in Pakistan and 405 in Turkey. Structural equation modeling through Smart-PLS was used to analyze relationships among the constructs. Our analysis shows that performance expectancy (PE), hedonic motivation, habit (HT), and perceived credibility (PC) are determinants of OB acceptance in Pakistan, whereas PE, social influence, price value, HT, and PC are the factors affecting Turkish bank customer intentions. Results of the cultural moderators show that collectivism and long-term/short-term orientation affect customers' UB in Pakistan while uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and masculinity/femininity moderate the UB of Turkish customers. Our findings provide new insights for developing online banking in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the current study was to investigate relationships between certain dimensions of religiosity and psychological capital (PsyCap) in the Christian, Hindu, and Muslim secondary school students in Pakistan. Extrinsic, intrinsic, quest religious orientations, and the behavioural dimension of religiosity were adopted as independent variables. The PsyCap served as a criterion variable. Fifteen hundred secondary school students affiliated with the Christian (n = 371), Hindu (n = 505), and Muslim (n = 624) communities participated in the study. Three measures, including the New Indices of Religious Orientation Revised, Behavioural Measure of Religiosity and Psychological Capital Questionnaire were used to collect data. Results demonstrated a significant contribution of independent variables in explaining variances in the criterion variable in the three groups of students. However, the impact of each dimension of religiosity on psychological capital differs among the Christian, Hindu, and Muslim students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smartphone-based Social networking sites (SNS) use changed the ways that individuals are increasingly becoming free and flexible to engage in social media wherever and whenever they like. However, there have been few studies that ask possible adverse effects of the late-night usage of Smartphone-based SNS. The current aims to explore the effects of late-night extreme social, cognitive, and hedonic usages of social media, such as poor sleep quality (PSQ) and cognitive function depletion (CFD). Drawing from stress–strain-outcome and ego-depletion theories, we argue that late-night Smartphone-based SNS usage is a reason for sleep deprivation, thereby leading to the depletion of cognitive function with the inducement of poor academic performance. The study opted for an empirical study (N = 701), based on a dual theoretical model measured by using the adapted scale from well-established and reliable studies. This study determined that Smartphone-based SNS use for personal gratification at night affects PSQ, thereby relating to significant CFD during the day. Consequently, it influences the academic performance of the users. We also discussed the implications for the service provider, users, especially students, and others who are working with the dark side of SNSs use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]