With 38 million residents, Poland has the eighth-largest population in Europe. A successful transition from communism to democracy, which began in 1989, has brought several significant changes to the country's economic development, demographic structure, quality of life, and public policies. As in the other European countries, Poland has been facing a rapid increase in the number of older adults. Currently, the population 65 and above is growing more rapidly than the total population and this discrepancy will have important consequences for the country's economy. As the population ages, there will be increased demands to improve Poland's health care and retirement systems. This article aims to provide a brief overview of the demographic trends in Poland as well a look at the country's major institutions of gerontology research. The article also describes key public policies concerning aging and how these may affect the well-being of Poland's older adults.
To predict which women might suffer from abnormally high levels of anxiety and depression after receiving a positive genetic BRCA1 test result, series of pregenetic testing and postgenetic testing psychological measurements were performed. Of 3524 women who returned the psychological test sheets before receiving their genetic test result, 111 women were found to carry a BRCA1 mutation. We found that overall, anxiety does not increase in women who receive a positive BRCA1 genetic test result; however, women who experience high levels of anxiety before genetic testing continue to experience high levels of anxiety up to 1 year posttesting. There were differences in cancer-related distress in affected and unaffected women. BRCA1 carriers with a previous diagnosis of cancer had significantly higher levels of cancer-related distress at 1 month posttest than those without cancer. Our findings suggest that healthcare providers should consider including a brief pretest psychological assessment before initiating genetic testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2.
The purpose of this study was to describe the effect of a set of individual resources and cultural factors on adolescents' probability estimations of the occurrence of positive future events in three life domains: education, occupation, and family. The hypothesis was that the effects of culture and individual resources are interwoven in the formation process of future orientation. The sample consisted of 352 17-year-old Polish and Finnish girls and boys from vocational and upper secondary schools. The 78-item questionnaire developed by the authors was used to measure different aspects of future orientation (probability, valence, and extension of future events in three life domains) and individual resources (self-esteem, control beliefs, and social knowledge about normatively and the generation gap). Data analysis showed that culture separately affected individual resources and adolescents' expectations. However, the results broadly confirmed the thesis that the culture has a limited effect on adolescents' expectations of the occurrence of future events. Moreover, these data suggested that the influence of sociocultural differences on adolescents' probability estimations is indirect. In the context of the presented data, the authors discuss their model of future orientation.
health psychology report • volume 4(1), 6 original article background The interest in the possibility of improving cognitive functioning through training of basic cognitive processes is growing. This possibility is of particular importance for older adults, whose cognitive functions are weakened, and who may need cognitive rehabilitation. However, improvement of the performance in the tasks being trained is not the only goal of basic cognitive processes training. Far transfer, onto tasks different to the ones trained, and engaging other (usually complex) processes, including fluid intelligence, is an important goal of such training. Yet, meta-analyses suggest that results of studies on the far transfer phenomenon vary, and are not conclusive.
We aim to demonstrate that the understanding of behavior and development requires a better fit between methods to gather and analyze data and the dynamic nature of psychological phenomena. We argue that there are limits to the application of static designs of data collection in correlation design and to focusing on measures of central tendency when inferring on the complex processes of change in human behavior and development. We describe possible ways to correct the errors we make and to overcome the difficulties that we face when measuring change.We conclude that there is a need to identify a comprehensive model of gathering and analyzing data that takes into account the observation period of the phenomena (shortand long-term research), the complexity of the studied form of activity (elementary and complex) and the situation/context of the measurement (well-defined situation and situation "at large").
key wordsbehavior; change; development; time; dynamic approach The analysis of change in behavior and development 66 current issues in personality psychology BACKGROUND
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