The concept of dispositional resistance to change has been introduced in a series of exploratory and confirmatory analyses through which the validity of the Resistance to Change (RTC) Scale has been established (S. Oreg, 2003). However, the vast majority of participants with whom the scale was validated were from the United States. The purpose of the present work was to examine the meaningfulness of the construct and the validity of the scale across nations. Measurement equivalence analyses of data from 17 countries, representing 13 languages and 4 continents, confirmed the cross-national validity of the scale. Equivalent patterns of relationships between personal values and RTC across samples extend the nomological net of the construct and provide further evidence that dispositional resistance to change holds equivalent meanings across nations.

Reading, even when silent and individual, is a social phenomenon and has often been studied as such. Complementary to this view, research has begun to explore how reading is embodied beyond simply being 'wired' in the brain. This article brings the social and embodied perspectives together in a very literal sense. Reporting a qualitative study of reading practices across student focus groups from six European countries, it identifies an underexplored factor in reading behaviour and experience. This factor is the sheer physical presence, and concurrent activity, of other people in the environment where one engages in individual silent reading. The primary goal of the study was to explore the role and possible associations of a number of variables (text type, purpose, device) in selecting generic (e.g. indoors vs outdoors) as well as specific (e.g. home vs library) reading environments. Across all six samples included in the study, participants spontaneously attested to varied, and partly surprising, forms of sensitivity to company and social space in their daily efforts to align body with mind for reading. The article reports these emergent trends and discusses their potential implications for research and practice.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between the amount of time that preschool children, aged 6-7 years, spend using a tablet or a smartphone for entertainment purposes, aspects of their home literacy environment (HLE), and their letter recognition ability. Participants in the study were a convenient sample of 97 children (43 girls) aged 6-7 years and one of their parents, who agreed to participate in the research during the process of school readiness assessment. Children completed a letter recognition test, while parents filled out a questionnaire in which they gave estimates of the amount of time their child typically spends using a tablet or a smartphone for entertainment purposes during a typical week and completed a scale assessing their HLE. The results show that a smaller amount of time that children spend using a tablet or a smartphone for entertainment purposes during a typical week, higher education level of mothers, and more frequent parental engagement in interactive reading with children are positively related to children's letter recognition. However, more frequent interactive reading with the child was the only significant predictor of better letter recognition. The findings point to the importance of time spent using digital devices for entertainment purposes by preschool children, as well as the quality of their home environment, in literacy development.

AimTo examine the relationship between the Big-Five personality model and autodestructive behavior symptoms, namely Autodestructiveness and Suicidal Depression in two groups of participants: clinical and non-clinical adolescents.MethodsTwo groups of participants, clinical (adolescents with diagnosis of psychiatric disorder based on clinical impression and according to valid diagnostic criteria, N = 92) and non-clinical (high-school students, N = 87), completed two sets of questionnaires: the Autodestructiveness Scale which provided data on Autodestructiveness and Suicidal Depression, and the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP), which provided data on the Big -Five personality dimensions.ResultsClinical group showed significantly higher values on the Autodestructiveness scale in general, as well as on Suicidal Depression, Aggressiveness, and Borderline subscales than the non-clinical group. Some of the dimensions of the Big-Five personality model, ie, Emotional Stability, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness showed significant relationship (hierarchical regression analyses, P values for β coefficients from <0.001 to 0.021) with Autodestructivness and Suicidal Depression, even after controlling for the sex and group effects or, when analyzing Suicidal Depression, after controlling the effect of other subscales.ConclusionThe results indicate that dimensions of the Big-Five model are important when evaluating adolescent psychiatric patients and adolescents from general population at risk of self-destructive behavior.

This research aimed to examine digital technology (DT) use, sleep quality (SQ), and the correlations between these variables in children and parents, in Croatia during the lockdown. Furthermore, it aimed to determine parental life satisfaction (LS) and its relation to DT use. In an online questionnaire, 281 parents of children (3 to 14 years old) provided information about the duration of DT activities throughout the pandemic, compared to the time before the pandemic, the time spent using digital devices in a typical day, and SQ for themselves and their children, as well as the estimates of personal LS. The results show that the relationship between DT use and SQ during the lockdown differs between parents and children. More time spent using DT devices is not related to SQ in parents, and more time spent on smartphones is positively associated with parents' LS. In children, the prolonged use of smartphones for leisure is negatively linked to SQ. These results call for caution in allowing children longer screen time.

This review paper aims to present the results of recent research on the relation between the use of digital technology and children's development. The paper describes the importance of the topic and gives a systematic overview of empirical research on the topic of the paper. The results of recent research show that the use of digital technology in children is associated, albeit low to moderate, with their physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development. The content that is viewed, created, and listened to through digital technology devices and the time and circumstances of children's use of digital technology determine whether the effects of the use of digital technology on children's development will be positive or negative. This review of current research indicates the need to further examine the factors that may mediate and/or moderate the relationship between the use of digital technology and children's development, and the need to develop a theoretical framework to integrate current knowledge and direct future research in the field.

The aim of this research was to translate and adapt the revised version of the "Reading the mind in the eyes test" (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001) to the Croatian language, and to provide preliminary data on its reliability, factor structure and convergent validity in a healthy population of Croatian students. After translation and adaptation, the Croatian version of the RMET was administered to 146 undergraduate and graduate students (84 female and 62 male participants). Together with the RMET, we administered the Emotional Empathy Scale (Raboteg-Šarić, 1993). Results show low internal consistency reliability of the Croatian adaptation of the RMET and adequate reliability measured with maximal reliability H coefficient. Confirmatory factor analysis marginally supports the unidimensional model. Convergent validity was marginally confirmed by a significant positive correlation between REMT and empathy. Additionally, we created a short version of the RMET, showing adequate fit indices, but containing only seven items. Internal consistency reliability and composite reliability for this scale were satisfactory. We propose further investigation of psychometric properties of the Croatian adaptation of the RMET with research in general, more representative population. We also propose investigating test-retest reliability, as well as discriminant validity of the test.

Since the use of digital technology (DT) has become a significant part of children’s everyday life, one of the main questions is why and for what purposes children use DT. This paper aims to explore categories of motivation for DT use among Croatian children aged 9 to 15 years, and their rate of occurrence, from the perspective of children (18 boys; 13 girls; average age = 11) and their parents (3 fathers; 28 mothers). Focus groups with children as well as their parents were conducted online via Zoom, in spring 2021. Results show that both children and their parents state following motives for children’s use of DT: fun and entertainment, interaction and communication, relaxation, and rest, learning and seeking information. Furthermore, children, but not their parents, state as their motives time pass and boredom, and Fear of Missing Out. This research contributes to a better understanding of the reasons why children use DT, provides a taxonomy of motives, and shows that children’s motives for DT use are universal to different life circumstances.