Single parent families are at high risk of financial hardship which may impact on psychological wellbeing. This study explored the impact of financial hardship on wellbeing on 15 single parents. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed using constructivist thematic analysis. Participants described food and fuel poverty, and the need to make sacrifices to ensure that children’s basic needs were met. In some cases, participants went without food and struggled to pay bills. Isolation, anxiety, depression, paranoia, and suicidal thoughts were described. However, participants reported that psychological services not able to take the needs of single parents in to account. Support for single parents must acknowledge the impact of social circumstances and give more consideration economic drivers of distress.
The popularity of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) has risen greatly over the last few years. To date there has been very little published academic research concerning online gaming and even less on the different types of online games that exist. Given the lack of data, a scoping study was undertaken to examine the extent, range and nature of different MMORPGs. Data were collected relating to the twenty most popular MMORPGs. The primary aim was to present a summarised overview of all material reviewed. The secondary aim was to provide a thematic construction in order to present a narrative account of existing MMORPG literature. Overall, the scoping study found that whilst some games had received moderate, or even substantial attention, others have had no research conducted upon them at all. This presents a problem since the growth in both the player base and the industry suggests that a single psychological profile of 'the gamer' cannot be relied upon, and as such further research is required. It is hoped that this study suggests ways forward and helps set research agendas for future research into MMORPGs.
An online diary study was performed to investigate deception across different media. One hundred and four individuals participated in the study, with 76 completing the diaries. Individuals were most likely to lie on the telephone. Planned lies, which participants also rated the most serious, were more likely told via SMS (short message service) text messaging. Most lies were told to people participants felt closest to. The feature‐based model provides a better account of the deceptions reported by participants than do media richness theory or social distance theory. However, the authors propose a reworked feature‐based model to explain deception across different media. They suggest that instant messaging should be treated as a near synchronous mode of communication. We suggest that the model needs to distinguish between spontaneous and planned lies.
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