Left-right political auto-identification has been used widely in socio-political research to interpret and organize political attitudes and opinions. In this paper we analyse whether the meaning of left-right orientation is the same in Eastern Europe and Western Europe. Using data from two big European survey programmes, European Social Survey and European Values Study, we show that while citizens’ support for economic liberalism is positively related to their left-right political auto-identification, their support for cultural liberalism is negatively related. More importantly, we also present evidence for the regional diversity hypothesis, which shows that this pattern was more prominent among citizens of Western European countries those of Eastern European countries. The results confirm the specificity of Eastern Europe when it comes to relationships between political auto-identification and other beliefs that are traditionally linked, implying that the concept of left-right political auto-identification cannot be transferred mechanically between Eastern Europe and Western Europe.
The article discusses the role of universal design as a tool for developing empathy and social responsibility in design education. It presents teaching experiences from a course for graphic design students that integrates methodology, design thinking and Project-Based Learning. The purpose of the classes is to prepare students for creation of inclusive and accessible solutions. The evaluation conducted, based on mixed methodology, showed that the course had a positive impact on students’ approach to design. As many as 65% of students who have completed the course declared a clear positive change in their approach. These changes included increased awareness of accessibility issues, better understanding of the meaning of empathy and appreciation of the role of research in the design process. Students emphasised that their designs focused on users’ actual needs and not on their own creative preferences. They also noticed that designing with disabled persons in mind expanded accessibility for the entire society, including the elderly or parents with children.
The project aimed to assess the effects of narrative framing applied to one’s past romantic relationship. It was expected that the activation of self-story on broken love would lead to more beneficial thinking about the personal past and possible future in close relationships. Women after the romantic relationship breakup (N = 422, 18–30 years old) took part in a two-stage naturalistic experiment in which they were randomly assigned to two sets. The narrative set participants wrote a story of broken love, while the control set participants answered questions about the past relationship. After seven days, participants declared their current thoughts and breakup understanding and provided open responses on the breakup reasons and thoughts about the future in close relationships. Self-story activation led to higher reflection elaboration and greater focus on causal connections, actions, and appropriate time perspectives. Women with activated self-stories provided more coherent descriptions of breakup reasons, declared a higher understanding of breakup, and experienced more future-oriented thoughts. The presence of the reported effects differed with the mode of exploration of the self-story activation level, and most of them were positively related to the level of narrative organization (plot structuring) of the narrative set participants’ self-stories. These results underscore the impact of narrative thinking on cognition, and suggest that self-story writing interventions could help manage challenging interpersonal experiences.
This study aimed to explore the neural basis of self-control and cognitive control by examining the brain activity during an inhibitory control task. Fifty-four participants (37 women) took part in this study. Their self-control was assessed through three psychometric scales, on the basis of which the general self-control Factor S has been extracted. Cognitive inhibition was measured using the Go / No Go task with social stimuli (emotionally significant faces), during which event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to capture the neural activity. We found that participants with high scores on Factor S showed stronger activation in the right and left Inferior Frontal Gyri, but only during trials when negative social stimuli served as inhibition cues. Medium self-control individuals showed greater Anterior Insula activity compared to other groups, in response to positive social cues. Overall, we found that strong self-control was associated with distinct and heightened neural activity during cognitive inhibition when the inhibition cue had a negative emotional valence. These findings bridge the gap between self-control and cognitive inhibitory control, emphasizing emotional context and neural mechanisms. The results align partially with previous studies while introducing structure and novelty for clinical implications and future research.
