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Learning and development of critical thinking (CT) skills in higher education is essential for academic achievement. The following experiment is the first to examine the effect of online student's perceptions and attitudes towards CT across dimensions of confidence, valuing, misconceptions, cognitive reflection, and authors writing. Furthermore, a CT intervention was developed, and the effects of the intervention examined with an aim to help students improve their grade point average. The analyses demonstrated that student's confidence and cognitive reflection predict academic achievement. Moreover, the online CT intervention was associated with improved students' CT attitudes, skills, and academic performance. Significant interactions were observed between time (pre- and post-intervention) and intervention in cognitive reflection, confidence, beliefs, and attitudes related to CT, and student grade point average (GPA, as a measure of student's performance on online modules). It was concluded that the CT can be taught and that an intervention based on "how to think" rather than a "what to think" mixed approach can help online students develop CT, strengthen their confidence in CT and help students improve their academic performance in an online setting.

There is a lack of studies addressing the psychological mechanisms underlying the association between individual differences in greed and well-being. This study tested the relationship between dispositional greed, and satisfaction with life, as well as the moderating effect of social comparison orientation on this association (N = 373). As expected for hypothesis 1, we found that greed correlated negatively with satisfaction with life, and positively with social comparison orientation, even after controlling for individuals' mental health index (anxiety and depression), supporting the hypothesis 2. Further, the moderating effect of social comparison strengthened the relationship between high levels of dispositional greed and dissatisfaction with life, failing to support hypothesis 3. As such, individuals high on dispositional greed were less satisfied with life if they also showed lower (vs. medium level) levels of social comparison orientation. These findings add to the psychological literature on greed by showing that social comparison is not only positively related to it but can also be a vital mechanism for boosting psychological well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UK depression prevalence is increasing. In this study we appraised the relationships between psychological factors of derailment, self-criticism, self-reassurance and depression, to identify individual differences within the UK general population indicating those at higher risk. Participants completed self-report measures regarding these constructs. Relationships were assessed using correlation and path analyses. Derailment and self-criticism predicted depression positively, whereas self-reassurance predicted depression negatively. Self-criticism mediated derailment's relation to depression. Self-reassurance moderated derailment's relation to depression, with low self-reassurance indicating greater depression, though self-reassurance was not found to moderate the effect of derailment-associated self-criticism on depression. In depression treatment therefore derailment should be considered as a target factor to be reduced, since derailment indicates a risk of depression for individuals with high self-criticism or low self-reassurance.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study aimed to examine how social representations of modern slavery and immigration become entangled in newspaper media. 2672 UK newspaper articles were collated from 2013 to 2022 and analysed using Content Analysis (Descendant Hierarchical Classification) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Two themes and corresponding extracts were identified from the content analysis output and analysed using CDA allowing for the exploration of the role of the hegemonic social representations to understanding how discourses of modern slavery are reproduced through the othering in relation to ethnicity and migration. The two themes that emerged were 'Leading the way in tackling slavery' and 'Making claims.' The themes combined showed how the media and political discourse positioned the UK government as leading the way in tackling modern slavery. Simultaneously, discourses criminalized migrants and constructed them as the source of social harm, and the obstacles to resolving the social injustices were those opposing anti-immigration legislation. These two contradictory positions have implications in how modern slavery is understood by the public. More worryingly, it could lead to silence from victims due to the threat of being criminalized., (© 2024 The Author(s). British Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.)

The Cognitive Mediation Beliefs Questionnaire is a 15-item tool that assesses individuals' emotion beliefs about the cognitive mediation of emotions. It measures two emotion beliefs: stimulus-response generation beliefs and cognitive mediation change beliefs. This study aimed to reduce the number of items and test the validity of a briefer version of the Cognitive Mediation Beliefs Questionnaire. We combined data from 13 unpublished data sets collected between 2019 and 2023 and reached a final sample of 2,872 participants. While this data set is relatively large and diverse (e.g., participants from 53 nationalities), most were from developed countries, and the data were not fully representative across demographic characteristics, such as age and ethnicity. The data were randomly split by 50%/25%/25% (60%/40% female/male) to conduct one exploratory factor analysis and two confirmatory factor analyses. Using an iterative process in the exploratory factor analysis, seven items were deleted for failing to meet item retention criteria, resulting in an eight-item solution across two factors. Across two confirmatory factor analyses with independent samples, the eight-item and the 15-item solutions were tested. The eight-item model was superior in terms of model fit in both samples. These results were in line with our hypothesis in that an eight-item Short Cognitive Mediation Beliefs Questionnaire confirmed the validity of the two-factor structure. The present study offers a valid and efficient measure of emotion beliefs that can be used to make a rapid assessment of beliefs about emotions and to support clinical interventions, particularly cognitive behavioral therapy approaches, where cognitive change is fundamental. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).