Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the psychology of risk: what risk is (if it is anything at all), how people think about it, what they feel about it, and what they do about it. The chapter describes the way psychologists think about risk: how they study it, what tasks they use, what factors they vary, and what models they build (or borrow) to describe risk-taking behavior. Technically, the word risk refers to situations in which a decision is made whose consequences depend on the outcomes of future events having known probabilities. Psychological studies of risky choice (it is the term used conventionally to refer to all but the most extreme instances of ignorance or ambiguity) fall into two groups. At one extreme are the studies run by mathematically inclined experimental psychologists in which subjects make decisions about gambles described in terms of amounts and probabilities. At the other extreme are studies run by personality psychologists, who are mostly interested in individual differences in risk taking. A theory of risky choice is presented in the chapter that attempts to meld the strengths of both approaches. Empirically and methodologically it is tied to the experimental approach to risky choice. But theoretically it is more strongly tied to motivational approaches.

[Advances in Experimental Social Psychology] Advances in Experimental Social Psychology Volume 20 Volume 20 || Between Hope and Fear: The Psychology of Risk

Drawing from the theory of conservation of resources (Hobfoll, 1989), we examined relationships between social support seeking as a response to perceived discrimination from supervisors, core self-evaluations, and withdrawal behaviors. We further studied how the relationship between social support seeking and withdrawal behaviors was moderated by core self-evaluations. With two different samples, we found, as expected, that social support seeking in response to discrimination from supervisors is positively related to employee withdrawal behaviors, and core self-evaluations is negatively related to withdrawal behaviors. Across the two samples, we also found evidence that the relationship between social support seeking and withdrawal behaviors was weaker when core self-evaluations were high compared to low. We discuss implications of our results in the context of past research.

Responses to discrimination: Relationships Between Social Support Seeking, Core Self-Evaluations, and Withdrawal Behaviors

Health inequalities according to objective socioeconomic position (SEP), have been well-documented. Yet, in young people the associations are negligible. Recently, research on the association of subjective social status (SSS), and adult health has begun to accumulate. Studies on young people are rare and describe societies with large income inequalities. Here, we investigated the association between SSS and health, while controlling for own and familial SEP. The study population consisted of 15-year-olds (N = 2369) who have grown up in a context of low social inequalities. Data were derived from surveys carried out in 2004 in 29 secondary schools in Helsinki. The SSS was measured with an indicator specific to and validated for adolescents (a societal ladder). Outcome measures were self-rated health, health complaints, presence of limiting longstanding illness (LLI) and GHQ-12 caseness (indicating psychiatric morbidity). The SSS associated strongly with all health measures. Adjusting for objective socioeconomic measures attenuated the associations; although they all remained statistically significant apart from LLI among girls. The subjective assessment contributes to health inequalities in young people largely independent of objective SEP. Subjective ratings most probably capture aspects of social hierarchy that are more subtle and less well represented than in conventional measures.

Subjective social status and health in young people

Mental health concerns of university students are gaining more attention since the emergence of the coronavirus disease. Consequently, scholars in education, health and psychology‐related fields have attributed the dwindling subjective well‐being (SWB) of students to their low levels of digital health literacy (DHL). However, little attention has been paid to an important variable like pocket money (PM) which might serve as a buffer against reduced levels of SWB. In this study, we explored the dynamics of PM and its linkage with DHL and SWB among university students in Ghana.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/hsr2.1095

A cross‐sectional study of university students' pocket money variance and its relationship with digital health literacy and subjective well‐being in Ghana

Disalignments among dimensions of adolescent subjective social status (SSS) may be influential to psychological health. How an individual responds to this incongruence may be explained by personality traits. Drawing upon the conceptualization of SSS and self-concept dimensions, the current study examined how SSS-academic, SSS-interpersonal, and their congruency relate to adolescent psychological health, and the moderating effect of core self-evaluations (CSE). Data (N = 387) were collected in two waves with a three-week interval in a senior high school. Results from the moderated polynomial regression analysis suggested that when CSE was at high levels, there was a significant incongruence effect----the greater the academic-interpersonal discrepancy was, the worse psychological health was reported----and SSS-interpersonal was a stronger predictor of psychological health than SSS-academic. For adolescents with low CSE levels, as long as one dimension of SSS was high, psychological health was better than when both dimensions were low. Examining how congruency of SSS dimensions influences psychological health may shed light on how internal inconsonance within self-concept relates to adolescent adjustment, especially when personality traits are taken into account.

Congruency of academic and interpersonal subjective social status in relation to adolescent psychological health: the moderating role of Core self-evaluations

Fang-Hsuan Hsueh

Papers

Congruency of academic and interpersonal subjective social status in relation to adolescent psychological health: the moderating role of Core self-evaluations