This study presents the development of a new instrument, the Multidimensional Attitudes Scale Toward Persons With Disabilities (MAS). Based on the multidimensional approach, it posits that attitudes are composed of three dimensions: affect, cognition, and behavior. The scale was distributed to a sample of 132 people along with a self-esteem measure and a frequently employed attitude scale, the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale (ATDP). The construct and concurrent validity of the questionnaire was demonstrated by reliability and factor analyses, as well as by comparison with the ATDP scale. Principal component factor analysis revealed three correlated but distinct factors. Results show that women hold more positive behavioral attitudes than men. Interestingly, men with high self-esteem were found to hold more positive cognitions than men with low self-esteem. Results indicate the importance of a multidimensional approach both for the construction of sound instruments and for professional interventions aimed at modifying attitudes toward persons with disabilities.

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This study aims to investigate the effect of observer’s gender and target’s gender on attitudes toward people who use wheelchairs due to a physical disability. Four hundred four Jewish Israeli students without disabilities completed the Multidimensional Attitudes Scale Toward Persons With Disabilities (MAS). Initially, confirmatory factor analysis was used to revalidate the MAS. Five factors of attitudes were confirmed: distancing behaviors, positive cognitions, negative emotions, interpersonal stress, and calm. Findings showed that an encounter with a person using a wheelchair raised more positive cognitions and less distancing behaviors, but also evoked more negative emotions, than an encounter with a person without a disability. In the case of an encounter with a person without a disability, men contributed to greater interpersonal stress among women, whereas women contributed to greater interpersonal stress among men. The multidimensional approach revealed that the effect of gender was mostly salient with regard to interpersonal stress.

Objective: Theories about how couples help each other to cope with stress, such as the systemic transactional model of dyadic coping, suggest that the cultural context in which couples live influences how their coping behavior affects their relationship satisfaction. In contrast to the theoretical assumptions, a recent meta-analysis provides evidence that neither culture, nor gender, influences the association between dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction, at least based on their samples of couples living in North America and West Europe. Thus, it is an open questions whether the theoretical assumptions of cultural influences are false or whether cultural influences on couple behavior just occur in cultures outside of the Western world.Method: In order to examine the cultural influence, using a sample of married individuals (N = 7973) from 35 nations, we used multilevel modeling to test whether the positive association between dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction varies across nations and whether gender might moderate the association.Results: Results reveal that the association between dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction varies between nations. In addition, results show that in some nations the association is higher for men and in other nations it is higher for women.Conclusions: Cultural and gender differences across the globe influence how couples' coping behavior affects relationship outcomes. This crucial finding indicates that couple relationship education programs and interventions need to be culturally adapted, as skill trainings such as dyadic coping lead to differential effects on relationship satisfaction based on the culture in which couples live.

As hypothesized, the effect of partners' perceptions of support provided on patients' recovery was moderated by patients' own perceptions of the support received. The effect of this interaction was determined by the specific types of support provided or received and by the specific recovery outcome that was measured. The clinical and theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.

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Background The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people’s engagement in health behaviors, especially those that protect individuals from SARS-CoV-2 transmission, such as handwashing/sanitizing. This study investigated whether adherence to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) handwashing guidelines (the outcome variable) was associated with the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic, as measured by the following 6 indicators: (i) the number of new cases of COVID-19 morbidity/mortality (a country-level mean calculated for the 14 days prior to data collection), (ii) total cases of COVID-19 morbidity/mortality accumulated since the onset of the pandemic, and (iii) changes in recent cases of COVID-19 morbidity/mortality (a difference between country-level COVID-19 morbidity/mortality in the previous 14 days compared to cases recorded 14–28 days earlier). Methods The observational study (#NCT04367337) enrolled 6064 adults residing in Australia, Canada, China, France, Gambia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, and Switzerland. Data on handwashing adherence across 8 situations (indicated in the WHO guidelines) were collected via an online survey (March–July 2020). Individual-level handwashing data were matched with the date- and country-specific values of the 6 indices of the trajectory of COVID-19 pandemic, obtained from the WHO daily reports. Results Multilevel regression models indicated a negative association between both accumulation of the total cases of COVID-19 morbidity (B = −.041, SE = .013, p = .013) and mortality (B = −.036, SE = .014 p = .002) and handwashing. Higher levels of total COVID-related morbidity and mortality were related to lower handwashing adherence. However, increases in recent cases of COVID-19 morbidity (B = .014, SE = .007, p = .035) and mortality (B = .022, SE = .009, p = .015) were associated with higher levels of handwashing adherence. Analyses controlled for participants’ COVID-19-related situation (their exposure to information about handwashing, being a healthcare professional), sociodemographic characteristics (gender, age, marital status), and country-level variables (strictness of containment and health policies, human development index). The models explained 14–20% of the variance in handwashing adherence. Conclusions To better explain levels of protective behaviors such as handwashing, future research should account for indicators of the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic. Trial registration Clinical Trials.Gov, #NCT04367337