Psychological Research and Reviews

This narrative review of recent literature on school shootings includes studies suggesting that the three salient predictors of school shootings include mental illness that is untreated, estrangement from friends, families and classmates and accessibility to guns. Other issues in this literature include the communication of an intent to harm suggesting a “cry for help” and contagiousness of school shootings. Several studies document the relationship between the lack of gun control and school shootings. The mental health of those exposed to school shootings has been the subject of research suggesting that those especially who had close exposure to the shooting or had a relationship with the shooter have experienced psychiatric problems including depression, anxiety, PTSD and suicidal ideation. Extremely high prevalence figures have been reported for exposure to violence by students at 42% witnessing a shooting, 18% a murder and 54% a murder of someone who is close. And as many as 21% have experienced depression, 46% lifetime PTSD and 27% current PTSD. Although a significant number of students have been injured during school shootings, no attention has been given to those students. This review highlights the mental health issues experienced not only by the shooters but by those who have been exposed to the shootings and the need for interventions as well as more effective gun legislation.

In Csikszentmihalyi’s 1990 theory of “flow”, individuals can become immersed in creative activities as well as other positive activities including exercise and meditation. Research has suggested that individuals engaged in “flow” could persevere regardless of feeling boredom or fatigue. However, the flow state is more difficult to achieve in the face of stress. In the current study, an archival database on a COVID-19 lockdown was analyzed for the relations between flow-like activities (creative work, meditation, and inside exercise) and psychological well-being (boredom, fatigue, anxiety, and depression). Hierarchical regressions suggested that creative work was positively associated with meditating, indicating that participants who reported more frequent creative work also reported meditating more often. Further, creative work, inside exercise, and meditation were associated with feeling boredom and fatigue. And, inside exercise was associated with decreased anxiety and depression symptoms. These findings should inform interventions to improve psychological well-being during lockdowns like COVID-19.

This study examined the effect of feelings of invulnerability on risk-taking among Cameroonian construction workers. Our sample consisted of 99 construction workers selected by reasoned choice sampling technique and randomly assigned to three different groups (invulnerability priming (n=33), vulnerability priming (n=33) and neutral priming (n=33)). A questionnaire was used to collect the data. It consisted of the Feeling of Invulnerability Scale, items from the Theory of Planned Behavior used to measure risk-taking at work, and priming texts to differentiate groups. The results indicate that invulnerability to danger and psychological invulnerability lead to risk-taking among Cameroonian construction workers. This study suggests taking into account perceptual biases in general and the feeling of invulnerability in particular in the prevention of accidents among construction workers.

This narrative review summarizes published research on psychological problems of the elderly during COVID-19. This includes brief reviews of 54 studies that have focused on loneliness, anxiety, depression and/or sleep problems and their comorbidities. Risk factors for these problems have included pre-existing conditions, infection, inactivity, fear of COVID, fear of death, and lack of social media skills. Buffers for the problems have included exercise, cognitive behavior therapy, acupuncture and melatonin. Limitations of this literature are that the studies are typically surveys, they focus on infections or psychological problems but rarely on the combination of those problems, and they are highly variable on recruitment during lockdown and non-lockdown periods as well as varying on their measures, precluding the use of meta-analyses.

Car risk-taking is a concern for governments and road safety agencies around the world. However, few studies on this topic have highlighted the role of both positive and negative emotions. The few existing studies have focused more on negative emotions. Anger has been shown to be related to the driving situation and has deleterious effects on driver behavior. It has also been shown that anxiety both impairs performance and encourages caution. But nothing is yet clearly established about the role of positive emotions. This article aims to identify the different emotions that Cameroonian motorists report feeling when they are behind the wheel, generative situations and underlying risk-taking behaviors. From the semi-structured interviews conducted with 21 participants, it emerges that four emotions are regularly felt by motorists: anger, anxiety, fear and joy. The situations at the origin of these emotions are specific to each sex and the risky behaviors, depending not only on the type of emotion felt but also on the gender of the participant. This study is a course of intervention to be exploited to act effectively on the phenomenon of road accidents related to risk-taking. It can help to effectively define trajectories not only for future studies but also in the development of road safety strategies.

This narrative review of the literature suggests that school closings during COVID-19 were associated with reduced transmission of the virus but also reduced academic performance and mental health problems including anxiety, depression and disrupted sleep rhythms. These problems have been exacerbated by excessive screen time, inactivity and over-eating. Re-openings were less often studied, but infection rates typically increased as well as stress levels and insufficient sleep. Methodological limitations include the typically absent baseline data and the questionable reliability of parents reporting on the activities and feelings of their youth.

Risk-taking related to road mobility of vulnerable users can be different from one country to another, from one culture to another. Vulnerable users (pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists), who are those whose exterior protections are most lacking compared to drivers of cars or trucks, constitute almost half of the individuals killed in road accidents (WHO, 2015). Contexts, cultural values and beliefs are likely to play a role in risk taking (Cestac et al., 2016; Delhomme & Meyer, 1995; Kouabenan, 2007;). This research aims to compare Cameroonians to French in terms of beliefs, cultural values and motivation for protection and identify the predictors of attitude and intention to infringe the red light. It was conducted among 156 Cameroonians and 131 French using a self-assessment questionnaire. Results showed differences in beliefs, motivation for protection and cultural values. Cameroonians have a strong religiosity compared to the French. The differences observed in terms of beliefs are in line with the reflection of Ingelhart (1999) who shows that there are more beliefs in Africa than in Europe. Cameroonians have a strong religiosity compared to French. The differences observed in terms of beliefs are in line with Ingelhart’ (1999) positions who shows there are more beliefs in Africa than in Europe.

Loneliness has been frequently reported in the COVID-19 literature but rarely in the context of potential comorbidities including depression, fatigue, and sleep problems. The present study assessed the relationships between self-reported loneliness, and the potential comorbidities based on an archival database called the COVID-19 Lockdown Activities Survey (N= 260 participants). Loneliness was endorsed by 67% of the participants. Greater loneliness was related to greater depression, fatigue, and sleep problems. A regression analysis revealed that depression contributed to 47.1% of the variance in loneliness. These results highlight the multidimensionality of loneliness. The generalizability of these results is limited by the homogeneity of the sample (predominantly non-Hispanic white females). Nonetheless, they highlight the importance of designing interventional protocols that address loneliness and the associated depression, fatigue, and sleep problems rather than loneliness alone.

Social media effects on youth during COVID-19 have been studied in the context of excessive use and mental health. Although some positive effects have been reported including connecting and social support, the COVID-19 research has typically noted negative effects including sedentary behavior, limited social interaction, depression and anxiety. This narrative review of eighteen COVID-19 publications on social media effects on youth includes sections on prevalence, on effects and on mediators/moderators of those effects. The prevalence of social media use by youth during COVID-19 has varied between 5% and 97% across 22 countries as a function of location, quarantine/lockdown, and type of social media, although the overall prevalence has significantly increased by 27% during the pandemic and has averaged 38% across studies. The most popular social media have been Facebook, What’s App, Instagram and Twitter. The prevalence of mental health symptoms has also varied across countries but has averaged 27% for anxiety, 34% for depression and 35% for stress. Mediators for the relationships between excessive social media and mental health symptoms have included rumination, psychological capital, sense of control and active use and moderators have included mindfulness, academic burnout and “flow”. Limitations of this literature are its sampling of self-reports from university students via cross-sectional surveys and confounding variables including pre-existing psychopathology, lockdown conditions, and sedentary behavior. Research is needed on the specific reasons for excessive social media use (e. g. information seeking, social interaction and escape from negative feelings including loneliness and touch deprivation) to inform intervention protocols for reducing this addictive behavior and its negative consequences on mental health symptoms in youth.

This paper investigates the relationship between self-efficacy and deviant behaviour at work by cameroonian civil servants. The problem raised by this research is that of the practice of deviant political behavior at work by public officials in Cameroon. According to Robinson & Bennett (1997), this is administrative gossip; administrative favoritism, spreading rumors and blaming colleagues and / or users unnecessarily and without reason. The objective of this research is to show that a self-efficient employee does not practice deviant political behaviors at work. Such an objective is part of the research axis of the psychological and developmental sciences, precisely in the field of organizational and occupationnal psychology. The data collection method is the survey and the tool is the questionnary in the form of measurement scales. Simple random sampling yielded the sample of 500 participants. The self-efficacy scale is that of Sherer and Coll (2005) translated and adapted by Chambon (2013) and the deviance scale is that of Bennett and Robinson (2000). Data collection took place in Yaoundé and the analysis was descriptive and regressive. 70% of the participants in this research believe that the practice of deviant political behavior is a reality in public service Cameroon. HRI: β = 0.25; HR2: β = 0.21; HR3: β =0.22: these results show that the three hypotheses are not validated. P = 0.000 the hypothesis is significant. Our regression result based on data collected on a sample of 500 civil servants shows that a self-efficient employee can produce deviant political behavior at work. A self-efficient employee can also produce deviant political behavior at work.