This study was a longitudinal investigation of the psychological and attitudinal consequences of perceived ethnic discrimination and ethnic and national identification among immigrants in an 8-year follow-up study with panel data. The participants were 293 immigrants in Finland coming from the former Soviet Union. The results supported the Rejection-Disidentification Model (RDIM) proposed in this study; perceived discrimination resulted in national disidentification, which, in turn, increased hostile attitudes towards the national out-group. Contrary to prevalent assumptions in the literature, long-term psychological well-being was not determined by the absolute level of discrimination experienced in the past. However, it was influenced by an increase in those experiences over time, and evidence was also obtained for the reciprocal relationship between perceived discrimination and well-being. The results of the study were discussed in terms of the further development of the theoretical models explaining the role of identification in relationships between perceived discrimination, attitudes towards the national out-group and well-being among multiple-identified minority members.Cette étude est une recherche longitudinale sur les conséquences psychologiques et attitudinales de la discrimination ethnique perçue et de l'identification ethnique et nationale d'immigrants. Ayant contribué sur un suivi de huit ans aux données du panel, 293 immigrés vers la Finlande en provenance de l'ex Union soviétique ont participé à cette étude. Les résultats confirment le modèle du rejet-désidentification proposé dans cette étude; la discrimination perçue résulte d'une désidentification nationale, qui, à son tour, accroît les attitudes hostiles envers l'exo groupe national. Contrairement aux hypothèses répandues dans la littérature, le bien-être psychologique à long terme n'est pas déterminé par un niveau absolu de discrimination vécue dans le passé.

This study focuses on factors predicting school adjustment of immigrant adolescents. One hundred seventy-five immigrant adolescents of Vietnamese origin in Finland (ages 13 to 18) were compared with a sample of host national Finnish youth (N = 337). The immigrant adolescents were better adjusted to school than were their host national peers. In addition, school adjustment was enhanced by the integrative mode of acculturation (i.e., acquisition of the skills needed for participation in the host culture along with adherence to traditional cultural patterns). However, ethnic identity and acculturation were shown to be distinct phenomena; the acquisition of new cultural traits did not imply the simultaneous adoption of a new identity. In addition, perceived discrimination had a detrimental, whereas perceived parental support had a positive impact on the immigrants’school adjustments. The impact of these factors turned out to be mostly indirect (e.g., through self-esteem, sense of mastery, and psychological distress).

This study provides the most up-to-date overview of socioeconomic inequalities for a large number of NCDs across 20 European countries for both women and men. Future investigations should further consider the diseases, and their associated determinants, for which socioeconomic differences are the greatest.

The aim of this field experiment was to develop and assess an intervention promoting positive intergroup relations in culturally diverse schools. The intervention was based on extended contact and social learning and utilized behavioural journalism as its method. Intervention effects were assessed on out-group attitudes, perceived importance of future contact, perceived peer norms and intergroup anxiety among ethnic majority (N = 583) and minority (N = 214) youth in grades 7-9 in Finnish secondary schools (total N experimental = 388; total N control = 409). As a result of the intervention, both groups showed a tendency to perceive future intergroup contact as more important, and this effect was most notable for younger participants and girls. Prototypicality of in-group and out-group peer models contributed positively to intervention effects. However, unexpectedly, the intervention also increased experiences of intergroup anxiety among the oldest participants. The results are discussed taking into account the developmental stage of the youth studied. Besides critically assessing the effectiveness of the intervention, recommendations for improving theory-driven prejudice-reduction and for the development of future interventions in culturally diverse contexts are given.

This study supports the healthy migrant hypothesis among both men and women. Among men, old and second-generation immigrants’ predicted health falls more steeply by age. There was some variation between migrant groups in wellbeing among those with low education.

Liebkind, K., M€ akinen, V., Jasinskaja-Lahti, I., Renvik, T. A. & Solheim, E. F. (2019). Improving outgroup attitudes in schools: First steps toward a teacher-led vicarious contact intervention. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 60, 77-86.Despite the urgent need for promoting positive intergroup relations in schools, research on intergroup relations is not systematically translated into prejudice-reduction interventions. Although prejudice-reduction interventions in schools based on indirect contact have been conducted for decades, they have all been carried out by researchers themselves. In a field experiment in Finland in autumn 2015, we tested for the first time a vicarious contact prejudice-reduction intervention for its effectiveness among adolescents (N = 639) when implemented independently by school teachers instead of researchers. In addition, we tested the extent to which the intervention's effect depends on initial outgroup attitudes, previous direct outgroup contact experiences, and gender, hypothesizing that the intervention improves outgroup attitudes particularly among adolescents with more negative prior attitudes and less positive prior direct contact, and more among girls than among boys. We found an unanticipated overall deterioration in the outgroup attitudes during intervention in both the experimental and control groups. However, attitudes seemed to deteriorate somewhat less in the experimental than in the control group, and the intervention had a significant positive effect on outgroup attitudes in one experimental subgroup that needed it most: girls who had negative rather than positive outgroup attitudes at the outset. We discuss our results in light of previous research and contextual particularities.

Childhood financial difficulties as predictors of depression appear to, by themselves, exert the strongest influence in younger adults. There was, however, large variation between countries in the magnitude of associated risk, and in the pattern of risk factors contributing to adult depression, which underscores the need to account for country-level factors when aiming to gain knowledge about mental health.

Two research questions are addressed: 1) What predicts employment among persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) in Norway? 2) How do the employed compare with the non-employed in their job motivation, labour discrimination, quality of life, everyday coping, health and pain suffering? We use a cross-sectional survey from 2012. With a 51% response rate, 320 Norwegians aged 21-66 years with SCI participated. After injury, 69.5% were employed, and 44.5% remained employed at the time of the interview. There was no gender difference in employment. Among men and women, age at onset of SCI, ability to continue working in the same organisation and education was associated with employment. For men paraplegia and vocational rehabilitation were also significant. Occupational class was non-significant among both men and women. Job motivation and work ability could have affected past employment, and both the employed and non-employed supported the statement that employers discriminate against wheelchair users.