Psychology (e-books)

E-book

Jozef Bavoľár

On June 8 and 9, 2023, the 22nd edition of the Psychology of Work and Organization conference took place at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Pavel Jozef Šafárik in Košice. The conference program was divided into six blocks and one poster section and supplemented by three invited lectures.

This collection contains selected contributions from this conference, with contributions in English first, then in Slovak. The variety of contributions reflects the variety of topics in the field of work and organizational psychology, with the most represented topics being the quality of life and work load, aspects of the work of a school psychologist, factors affecting the achievement of work goals in emerging adulthood, and the presentation of new measures with possible application in the work environment.

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Zuzana Dankulincová - Daniela Husárová - Andrea Madarasová Gecková - Jaroslava Kopčáková

The publication entitled Health Psychology serves as background and teaching material. The text is structured to bring theoretical knowledge about the topic, current research findings in the field, and practical tips.

It provides comprehensive information on key areas of the field of health psychology and is designed for students to acquire and deepen their knowledge that could be implemented in their everyday practice.

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Andrea Madarasová Gecková - Daniela Husárová   a kol.

National Report on the Health and Health-Related Behaviour of 11-, 13-, and 15-Year-Old Schoolchildren Based on the Survey Conducted in 2021/2022 within the International Project “Health Behaviour in School-aged Children” (HBSC)

For several years, this study has provided us with key insights for a better understanding of the health-related behaviour of our young people. It examines a range of health-related topics such as sleep, mental well-being, nutritional behaviour, and physical activity. Important areas of research also include school and social relationships within it, family and family background, as well as peer relationships.

The findings deepen our understanding of the mechanisms influencing differences and changes in young people’s health and risk behaviours. They are crucial for the development of effective health promotion programmes and health-related behavioural interventions, educational programmes in this field, and for monitoring their effectiveness—not only at the national but also at the international level. The knowledge gained is important for a better understanding of the needs of schoolchildren and for adapting services and systemic support so that these needs are taken into account to the greatest possible extent in today’s rapidly changing world. The study can help us understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the quality of both mental and physical health.

The pandemic and the related epidemiological and hygiene measures aimed at limiting the spread of the virus have meant significant restrictions in the daily lives of people of all ages—including children and adolescents. The standard educational process, social contact with peers, extracurricular activities, and other interests both in and out of school were severely disrupted, which had a significant impact on the experiences of schoolchildren.

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E-book

Pavol Kačmár

Overview of the Issue and Meta-Analysis of Conducted Research.

The publication focuses on two key constructs – time perspective and goal achievement. After describing both constructs, the authors focused on potential connections that can be found at multiple levels of analysis. For the purpose of empirical verification, they conducted a small-scale meta-analysis synthesizing results across eleven studies. The obtained results highlighted the role of time perspective in selected aspects of goal achievement. The publication is intended to serve as a catalyst for further consideration of the issue, thereby encouraging research aimed at verifying how the acquired knowledge can be expanded to improve the quality of our daily lives in the context of cultivating our approach to time.

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Jozef Bavoľár - Ladislav Lovaš - Simona Ďurbisová

The process of achieving goals is one that has traditionally received significant attention in psychology. This attention is not only directed by researchers focused on motivation, with which the process of achieving goals is classically associated, but also from a wide range of other areas (e.g., emotions, personality). One aspect of goal-directed behavior that has received minimal, if not virtually no, attention is decision-making.

It is surprising to realize that various aspects of decision-making are present throughout the entire process of achieving goals - from evaluating different aspects of multiple alternative goals, through selecting among them, deciding on resource allocation (effort, time, finances, relationships...), continuously monitoring progress, to evaluating the outcome and its impact on future goal-directed behavior.

Even more surprising is that decision-making is directly addressed by one of the dominant theories explaining goal-directed behavior - the theory of mental action phases (mindset theory of action phases; Gollwitzer 1999, 2012). This theory distinguishes the pre-decisional and post-decisional phases as the first two phases of this behavior, separated precisely by the decision about which goal to pursue.

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E-book

Monika Hricová

Despite the fact that a psychologist may have a good moral background, it is necessary for everyone to know and act in accordance with ethical professional principles in order not to harm the clients with whom they work in the course of psychological practice. There are many case studies in the professional literature that describe serious situations of violations of psychological ethics. On the one hand, they depict conscious professional misconduct or ignorance. On the other hand, they have contributed to the introduction of even legal standards for the ethical behavior of psychologists as professionals. Completion of a course or training in the topic of psychological ethics is required by several professional associations abroad, especially in the last years of undergraduate studies. Their goal is to supervise the quality and preparation of future psychologists. The university textbook Do I Have It or Not: Ethics in Psychological Practice provides a summary of essential information on the ethics of conducting psychological practice, the boundaries of the relationship with the client, and the rules of confidentiality. The goal is not for the student, as a future psychologist, to know ethical rules word for word, but for them to be sufficiently ethically sensitive.

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Tatiana Kimáková - Štefan Tóth - Ivan Uher

The scientific monograph is devoted to active and healthy aging, its basic indicators, involutional changes, or the relationship between healthy aging and lifestyle. Adopting a healthy lifestyle and actively participating in health care for yourself are important elements in all stages of our lives, and therefore in healthy aging. We describe the possibilities of older people to slow down the adverse changes associated with aging through education and educational activities of various types.

The scientific monograph also includes our own research focused on overall health and selected lifestyle risk factors, especially consumption of various food groups, smoking, alcohol, physical activity and stress of participants at the University of the Third Age at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Slovak and foreign university students at the Medical Faculty of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. The scientific monograph is appropriate for the scientific community, students of medical and natural sciences, public health for all three degrees of university study.

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Františka Petriková - Vladimír Lichner - Eva Žiaková

The proposed methodological guide focuses on a self-care questionnaire for the target group of adolescents. The creation of this methodology was prompted by its absence in the conditions of the Slovak Republic. The methodological guide consists of both theoretical and empirical parts.

In the theoretical part, the authors present theoretical foundations for the proposed methodology—self-care among adolescents—and also provide theoretical definitions of components of self-care in this target group. The second, empirical part of the methodological guide is dedicated to validation methods used to verify the questionnaire. It also presents results examining differences or correlations in the presented issues.

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Zuzana Dankulincová a kol.

The scientific monograph is the output of the Care4Youth project, which aimed to map the current system of care for adolescents with emotional and behavioral problems (EBP) in Slovakia. It captures what the care system is and what its possible shortcomings are from the perspective of all those affected (adolescents with problems, their parents, care providers and other institutions involved).

It also looks at the trajectory of adolescents with EBP in the care system, i.e. when and how adolescents with problems enter and leave the care system, or pass from one type of care to another and what impact different trajectories have on them.

Last but not least, the aim of the monograph was to provide expert information on what are the risk and protective factors that will affect their success in the care system or, conversely, that threaten them. All this in order to support the proposal for improvements in the care system that would benefit all stakeholders.

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E-book

Ján Kahan - Eva Žiaková

The monograph focuses on the issue of loneliness among substance-addicted people in the context of abstinence prospects and re/lapse prevention. In the monograph these phenomena, several theories were integrated and applied in the context of the ecosystem meta-framework of social work and practical contexts. The ecosystem meta-theory serves as a meta-construct with the ability to encompass the complexity of social phenomena as well as that of human beings within the structure of their living and social environment, formal and informal networks, and close intimate relationships.

In this monograph are presented research sample consisted of 235 respondents – hospitalised addicts undergoing urgent treatment, abstaining A-club members as well as members of psychotherapy and self-help groups. The research showed that abstainers were statistically less lonely than the hospitalised respondents. Quantitative data of research are complemented by qualitative data collected in four case studies; two of them focused on two long-term abstainers from alcohol and drugs, while the other two case studies dealt with two respondents in post-hoc treatment undergoing the resocialization process. The research also showed that respondents who broke abstinence felt lonelier than their successfully abstaining counterparts.

The results were supported also by the fact that a statistically significant inversely proportional relationship was identified between the duration of abstinence and loneliness rate. Gender differences were found between the hospitalised addicts in all loneliness dimensions. Naturally, the combined research was limited in certain aspects, mainly in terms of the size and proportional distribution of the research sample and its subgroups, test battery extent, and general nature of the population studied. Triangulation among quantitative and qualitative with the theoretical starting points confirmed the existence of a relationship among loneliness, addiction, and prospect of abstinence.

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E-kniha

Pavol Kačmár - Jozef Bavoľár - Ladislav Lovaš (eds.)

This publication introduces a body of papers presented at scientific conference Work And Organizational Psychology that took place on May 23 and 24 in Košice. The theme of the conference was Past, Present, and Challenges to the Future. All papers were peer-reviewed.

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Ján Šimko - Dušan Šlosár

The monograph is dealing with the issue of homosexuality and homophobia in the context of social work and it is divided into five chapters, which are devoted to individual fields of the tackled issue. The first chapter is describing the phenomenon of homosexuality in the society; the focus is put on human sexuality and sexual orientation. The following chapter is clarifying the formation of homosexual identity in connection to coming out and it describes its frequently utilized models. The third chapter is devoted to the concepts of heteronormativity and heterosexism in the social context.

Furthermore, the chapter is dealing with the formation of attitudes towards this issue from the point of view of religion and masculinity. Another chapter is describing homophobia as the result of heteronormativity, stereotypes and prejudice.

In the last chapter, the authors are introducing selected social work theories dealing with the homosexual minority, the approaches to LGBT+ community and suggestions towards elimination of homophobia within the social work environment.

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E-book

Mária Bačíková - Anna Janovská

The textbook "Foundations of Methodology in Pedagogical-Psychological Research" is primarily intended for students of teaching academic subjects, but it will enrich anyone who needs to familiarize themselves with research methodology focusing on psychological and pedagogical sciences. In the textbook, students become acquainted with the basic principles of conducting research, the process of research implementation, and the basic methods of quantitative or qualitative approaches. The examples used in the textbook are mostly focused on research conducted in a school environment.

By mastering the basic knowledge presented in the textbook, the reader will be able to conduct simple research in school conditions. At the same time, understanding the principles of research methodology helps with the critical evaluation of information from various sources. In preparing the textbook, we utilized our long-term experience with teaching the subject of research methodology, as well as with implementing many research projects. We believe that the simple language of the textbook and the abundance of practical examples will help students understand the basics of such complex issues as research methodology.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the students of the Faculty of Arts and Natural Sciences at P. J. Šafárik University in Košice who attended the course "Foundations of Methodology in Pedagogical-Psychological Research" in the previous academic year for their inspiration, constructive comments on previous versions of the text, and ideas (or mistakes) that we drew upon in the textbook. We also thank other students who allowed us to use examples from their final theses in the textbook. The conclusion of the work is open because, as it turns out, we do not have a common denominator for both concepts that could decide on the correctness of one or the other concept. It is precisely in this that the Socratic question remains a serious philosophical problem today.

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Lucia Tóthová - Dušan Šlosár

The publication "Manifestations of Radicalism and Extremism in Social Relations" is an input analysis of the individual areas that the authors want to focus on in their research activities in the study of radicalism and extremism. The context of the study is in the possibility of social work in influencing radical and extremist tendencies in those areas that we can designate as working fields of social work.

The authors of the individual papers focus on the theoretical definition of extremism and radicalism, types and forms of extremism, factors affecting the formation of the radical and extremist thoughts, focusing on specific target groups (especially youth) and the role of social work in the issue of radicalism and extremism, and they also represent the results of research in the field.

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Veronika Vasiľová - Soňa Lovašová

The formation of social work as a scientific discipline is not a completed process because of with changes in society also change social problems that need to be identified and analyzed with the intention to develop methodological solutions aimed at preventing and interventing these social problems.For this reason, the field of social work as such is constantly expanding, as its dynamic nature makes it possible to respond to emerging social problems and react to the needs of society.

Social work in the school environment is a functioning science field abroad.In the conditions of the Slovak Republic, this area of social work is still missing.Therefore, the monograph deals with the possibilities of social work in the school environment in Slovakia. 

The monograph is primarily intended for the professionals working in the field of social work and in the third sector with children and youth.

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E-book

Lenka Lukáčová - Eva Žiaková

The burnout syndrome in the simplest sense is a state of total physical and psychological exhaustion. Its cyclical course may be misleading, often underestimated and neglected on the part of a burned-out individual, as well as by its surroundings. The neglection of warning signals strengthens the field of its occurrence and impact.

Monography is one of the methods with which we strive to draw attention to the problem of burnout syndrome in the performance of a helping profession. Based on this, we have focused on determining the frequency of occurrence of burnout syndrome in assisting professions based on predetermined risk factors (specific profesion, length of practice, motivators) in order to verify, confirm or refute  predefined factors. The subject of this research was also to examine the correlation between the aforementioned factors, the quality of professional life and the strategies for managing stress and stress situations.

The monography is intended for helping profesions e.g. social workers, nurses, doctors etc. We also believe that, this monography will be also benefit for a wider range of helping professions, as well for all those involved in the his problematics.

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E-book

Milena Barinková (ed.)

The complex of legal norms protecting work, ensuring safety and health protection at work, is very broad in scope, extending beyond the Labour Code to include other specific legal regulations, collective agreements, executive legal regulations, and internal corporate normative acts.

Health protection of employees from hazardous workplace influences is a central requirement stemming from fundamental human rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. To ensure its universal enforcement across all employers in both private and public sectors, strict regulation through cogent norms is fully justified. The European Commission’s Communication to the European Parliament, Council, European Economic and Social Committee, and Committee of the Regions on the EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2014–2020 (COM(2014) 332 final) addresses the need to account for labor market changes arising from demographic shifts, aging populations, and technological advancements.

Work pace demands are intensifying, and all age categories of employees must adapt to new technologies, organizational changes, and evolving job structures. This increases requirements for maintaining health fitness throughout entire professional careers. Mental health fitness, which receives insufficient specific attention, is an inherent part of health fitness requirements. Prevention plays a critical role in mental health protection.

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E-book

Eliška Župová et al.

Research into justice in public administration organizations has not yet been conducted in Slovakia, not even in the scope of respondents addressed. Therefore, we consider the project cross-sectional, current, and beneficial for deeper exploration of this area.

The project is designed as interdisciplinary, combining insights from legal perspectives in defining justice from labor law aspects, psychological and ethical evaluations of fairness levels, and knowledge from public administration management fields.

The inspiration for selecting this topic stems from its academic relevance, confirmed by both domestic and international studies, as well as its public relevance, where laypeople most intensely perceive justice/injustice in relation to remuneration and appropriate labor-law conditions – exemplified by teachers’ strikes (2003, 2006, 2016), nurses’ strikes (2003, 2006, 2012, 2016), ŽSR employees’ strikes (2003), and doctors’ strikes (2011).

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Vladimír Lichner - Dušan Šlosár et al.

It is very difficult to refer to any act of extremism or action having extremist characteristics, or to exclude it unambiguously. The boundary between extremism and accepted, conformal behavior is very broad and vaguely worded. Each company tends to set certain criteria to determine what can be considered as unwanted, violent, radical or extreme, or what signs of such a manifestation do not have. Therefore, when comparing the individual countries of the European Union in this area, we come across a different definition of what is or is not considered to be radical or extremist. In essence, the level of tolerance to some of the manifestations and the setting of indicators for the evaluation of the proceedings as extremist.

The presented monograph aims to present the basic social contexts of extremism and radicalization in the form of their philosophical and theoretical backgrounds, influencing the factors, the basic directions. In the author's work, the authors focus on the target group of adolescents, which they consider to be one of the most endangered groups in society in terms of development of the radicalization process. At the conclusion of the monograph is also offered the criminal level of these phenomena, which is not unavoidable in terms of complex analysis.

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Lukáš Šutor (ed.)

The proposed anthology represents for many doctoral students their first entry into the publishing environment of scientific genres. The studies in such cases contain the essence of future dissertation works, which represent the creative pinnacle of doctoral studies. In addition to providing doctoral students with the opportunity to publish scientific outputs, we also consider the anthology a space for interdisciplinary encounters and mutual enrichment. However, interdisciplinarity is not merely a characteristic of the anthology as a whole but also of some studies.

Most notable interdisciplinary approaches are observed in literary studies. The traditional subject of research into artistic texts is enriched in individual studies by examining theatrical and film works (Peter Getlík), linguistic aspects of phrasemes (Ivana Hudiková), musical elements (Terézia Kulíková), visual art (Dominika Petáková), and digital spaces of new media (Alexandra Popovičová). From other disciplines, we highlight Miroslava Süčová Vernarská’s study, which extends psychological research into sociological and linguistically communicative contexts (the concept of metaphor), or conversely, Zuzana Šoltésová and Dušan Šlosár’s contribution, analyzing eating disorders from their disciplinary background in social work.

Both mentioned disciplines also include contributions with traditional research subjects. Nikola Fabiny from psychology analyzes consequence expectations in the context of goal selection and achievement. Jana Plavnická and Dušan Šlosár’s co-authored study from the Department of Social Work presents a multi-perspective analysis of integration barriers for immigrants in Slovakia. Within their own disciplines, both philosophy contributions operate: Juraj Brenišin interprets the ethical aspects of Avicbron’s Fons vitæ, while Michal Kručko examines Edmund Husserl’s unfinished work through a comparative lens of his students Jan Patočka and Roman Ingarden. The anthology concludes with Lukáš Lukačín’s study (written in English), which explores the semantic-grammatical category of modality in the verbs MAY and CAN within legal-administrative documents of the European Union.

The representation of academic disciplines and doctoral students’ individual creative outputs in Doktorandské miscelaneá 4 is thus appropriately diverse. We present this publication to the broader academic community as a representative overview of trends in young scholars’ thinking across the spectrum of humanities and social sciences doctoral programs at the Faculty of Arts, UPJŠ in Košice.

Lukáš Šutor

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Miroslava Köverová - Margita Mesárošová (eds.)

The publication „Helping professions and self-care from the perspective of psychology and social work“ includes research studies focused on self-care, and the positive and negative effects of helping among specific groups of helping professionals – psychologists and social workers.

A number of Slovak as well as foreign authors contributed to the book of proceedings. The contributions are theoretical studies, research studies and case studies. The theoretical and research studies are focused on important issues of professional helping: self-care, compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, burnout, perceived stress, secondary traumatic stress, mindfulness, empathy, job satisfaction and turnover among psychologists and social workers.

Research interest in the phenomena is especially important in the context of the mental health of helping professionals and in reducing the negative consequences of helping. 

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Magdaléna Halachová - Denisa Rovenská

The monograph theoretically analyzes the virtual environment and its aspects, offers insight into the identity of the child in the virtual environment, the necessity of social support and the diversity of social relationships in the real world and virtual reality.

Furthermore, it contains the fundamental training program designed to minimize the risks of the virtual reality, because adolescents are often exposed to risks uncontrollably. For that reason it focuses on adolescent and empowering optimal self-image, as well as creating and maintaining real social networks.

The set of experiential-educational activities is conceptually divided into two main areas. The first one is content-focused on the adolescent, his/her psychological capability including opinions, attitudes, emotions, competences, and self-reflection.

The second one focuses on interpersonal real and virtual relationships, the recognition of the advantages and disadvantages of internet communication and face-to-face interaction, and last but not least for more optimal use of the Internet and preference for real social interaction.

Authors

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Vladimír Lichner - Dušan Šlosár

The scientific monograph focuses on the issue of adolescent risk behaviors on the internet in the form of its problematic use in the context of valid theories and practices of a social work. Text of the monograph is divided into four parts.

The first part focuses on the multidisciplinary definition of a risk behavior on the internet. It offers an up-to-date literary overview of the issue through the latest, especially foreign, theoretical knowledge.

The second part focuses on the problematic use of the internet in contexts of valid origins of the social work. The third part focuses on the presentation of the most important psychosocial factors correlating with the problematic internet use in the adolescent´s group. The theoretical knowledge is supplemented by the authors research into the present factors.

The final part is application-oriented and focuses on the possibilities that the social work offers at the praxis level to prevent and solve the presented problems.

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E-book

Lucia Tóthová - Eva Žiaková

The current time is fast, hasty, with strongly asserted women's emancipation, absorbed by information and communication technologies that overcome distances but create them at the same time. The lifestyle of humans is changing, many diseases are on the rise, and cancer is becoming a "trend of the present". Claims on man, and especially on women, are now too great. Women perform multiple roles and perform many tasks. They become caregiving mothers, understanding and surrendered wives, workers with professionalism and flexibility, and idols the myth of beauty too. Due to the overlapping of the traditional gender division of labor, the life of women takes place on several levels. Their work day does not end when they leave the job, but they continue to care for their household and their own family. Besides all, they strive to fulfill not only personal expectations, but also the expectations of the family, social environment and society, reject failure and strive for perfectionism.

In our lives, situations that affect and burden us more or less appear. Even though we can not in control everything and everyone, we are able to control situations that are of direct concern to us. In life, we encounter problems in employment, financial problems, illness or death of near. As well as negative, also positive situations affect us. Each responds to each situation different ways.

Monograph is one of the ways in which we aim to draw attention to the so "C-coping style" as a maladaptive way of managing the burden that is typical of oncological ill patients. It is one of the possible concepts that affect the manifestation of breast cancer. Based on this, we have focused on the used coping strategies and we consider the life events to be a significant burden in the lives of cancer patients. The research is aimed at synthesizing the life events and the coping strategies used to coping them, conceived as a risk behavior of patients with breast cancer. As the coping of the burden can be different between men and women, the monograph is intended predominantly for women, to which we have also focused in realized research. They can be patients with oncological diagnosis, but also women who want to prevent this disease by use effective coping life events. We also believe that the monograph will enrich everyone who is interested in the same target group.

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