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Abstract The recent literature highlights the need to explore phubbing, a worrying growing phenomenon, and the potential associated factors and outcomes. Thus, the present study focused on perceived phubbing and the potential associations with life satisfaction and psychological distress. Additionally, this study examined the mediating role of loneliness. The cross-sectional, web-based study involved 720 Romanian adults aged 18 to 77 (M = 24.12, SD = 8.80, 74% females) who completed self-reported scales measuring perceived phubbing, and life satisfaction. Results suggested positive associations between perceived phubbing, loneliness, and psychological distress. A significant negative association was also found between loneliness and life satisfaction. Further analyses suggested that loneliness partially mediated the link between perceived phubbing and life satisfaction and between perceived phubbing and psychological distress. The study highlights the significant role of perceived phubbing when discussing psychological distress and life satisfaction, underlining the need to address further the (mis)use of digital devices (e.g., smartphones) within interpersonal relationships, as well as the need to understand better the outcomes of such behaviors to shape effective interventions in this regard.

Background: Professional quality of life pertains to the balance between compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction. In recent years, there was an increase in compassion fatigue among medical staff due to the pandemic, all over the world, while compassion satisfaction was reported at a moderate level. Objectives: The aim of this study was to identify the relationship between workplace humour and professional quality of life among medical staff, as well as the moderating role of compassion in this relationship. Method: The sample consisted of 189 participants (Mage = 41.01; SD = 9.58). Of the total sample, 57.1% are physicians, 32.3% are nurses and 6.9% are clinical psychologists. The participants completed scales measuring compassion, workplace humour, and professional quality of life. Results: The results showed that self-enhancing and affiliative humour were positively related, while self-defeating humour was negatively related to compassion satisfaction. Burnout and secondary traumatic stress were negatively related to self-enhancing humour and positively related to self-defeating humour. Compassion moderated the relationship between affiliative humour and secondary traumatic stress. Conclusions: Encouraging coping strategies based on adaptive humour (i.e. affiliative humour, self-enhancing) and raising awareness about negative humour strategies (i.e. self-defeating) could contribute to an increase of quality of life among healthcare providers. Another conclusion derived from the present study sustains that compassion is a valuable personal resource positively related to compassion satisfaction. Compassion also facilitates the relationship between affiliative humour and low secondary traumatic stress. Thus, encouraging compassionate skills could be beneficial for the optimal professional quality of life.

BackgroundContemporary scientific literature has emphasized two specific aspects of healthcare professionals: compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has placed significant strain on health systems and healthcare workers, the Russian-Ukrainian crisis appears to have a magnifying effect, particularly on mental health.MethodsThe aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between threat perception, daily worries, and professional quality of life in a sample of Emergency Medicine Personnel during two major events mentioned above. The sample included 372 participants (56.7% nurses and 43.3% physicians) from emergency units in five county hospitals in the Eastern region of Romania.ResultsThe study revealed that threats related to the pandemic were positively linked to secondary traumatic stress, and daily worries were positively linked to both secondary traumatic stress and burnout. Threats generated by the war did not manifest a direct relation with any of the indicators of professional quality of life, but daily worries generated by war positively predicted both secondary traumatic stress and burnout.ConclusionBoth the pandemic, which involved cumulative exposure, and the war, which involved a lower and more distant level of exposure, had the potential to generate worries and predict a low quality of life. However, our results did not reveal any association between threats, worries, and compassion satisfaction. As a result, this positive indicator of quality of life remained stable despite the presence of threats and worries.

The present study aimed to explore the interplay among two indicators of children’s school peer relationships (i.e., peer acceptance and perceived number of friends) and two significant life domains (i.e., global life satisfaction and academic achievement). We also explored the potential mediating role of the perceived academic competence in these relations. Participants were 650 Romanian primary school students (45.7% boys), aged between 9 and 12 years old (Mage = 10.99). Path analysis showed a direct positive effect of perceived number of friends on children’s life satisfaction, as well as a direct positive effect of peer acceptance on academic achievement. Moreover, perceived academic competence mediated the links between each of the two indicators of peer relationships and children’s both life satisfaction and achievement. Several implications in the educational contexts are discussed.

IntroductionRomania shares the longest UE border with Ukraine, and since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, many have been involved in helping the refugees. Consequently, children and adolescents might be directly and indirectly exposed to war-related trauma. In the present exploratory research, we investigated Romanian adolescents’ potential risk and protective factors related to the psychological outcomes of war exposure. Our cross-sectional study was conducted shortly after February 24th (i.e., the first invasion day).MethodsThe sample included 90 Romanian adolescents aged 11 to 15 (M = 12.90, SD = 1.17), residents in Iași, Romania (i.e., 205,7 km from the Ukrainian border). Participants completed self-reported measures of peritraumatic dissociative experiences, knowledge about the conflict in Ukraine, personal, school, and family implications in volunteering/helping behavior, discussions about the conflict, threat perception (self and perceived parental threat), anxiety, social media engagement, resilience, and moral elevation.ResultsThe main findings suggested that participants involved in helping behaviors toward Ukrainian refugees present higher peritraumatic dissociative experiences, anxiety symptoms, and higher moral elevation than boys and participants not involved in these behaviors. Moreover, anxiety symptoms were positively associated with threat perception, peritraumatic dissociation, and social media engagement and negatively related to resilience.DiscussionsFinally, we discuss the implications of our findings concerning their practical utility in managing peritraumatic exposure to war by using interventions designed to increase adolescents’ resilience during difficult times.

This research examined the relationship between dispositional optimism and judgements of future life events, and whether this relationship is moderated by affective states. An adolescent sample (N = 139, 57.6 % girls) was recruited. After filling in the questionnaire for dispositional optimism, the participants were randomly assigned in the experimental conditions in order to induce negative affective states versus control condition. Finally, the participants completed the affective states and judgements of future life events scales. The results indicated that dispositional optimism positively correlated with judgement of positive events, but not with judgements of negative events. We found evidence for affective state as a moderator; the relationship between dispositional optimism and judgements of future positive events was stronger in the control condition compared to the negative affective state condition. T he implications of these findings for understanding the relation between personality factors and judgements about future events are discussed.

This systematic meta-analytic review investigated the relations between achievement goals and internalizing symptoms and disorders, namely, anxiety and depression. The number of samples for each focal relationship ranged from 3 to 36. The results indicated significant effect sizes for the relations between mastery-approach goals and anxiety (r = - 0.10) and depression (r = - 0.18), as well as performance-avoidance goals and anxiety (r = 0.25) and depression (r = 0.16). A significant effect size was also found for the relation between performance-approach goals and anxiety (r = 0.15), and a non-significant effect size was observed for the relation between performance-approach goals and depression (r = 0.05). Mastery-avoidance goals were not significantly related to either anxiety (r = 0.08) or depression (r = - 0.13). Several moderators representing the conceptualization of achievement goals (e.g., theoretical model), sample characteristics (e.g., education level), and methodology- and publication-based characteristics (e.g., year of publication) were significant, and suggested avenues for future research. These findings herein have implications for intervention programs that could focus on reducing the links between achievement goals and internalizing problems.