Katarzyna Byrka - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Katarzyna Byrka

Health Psychology Report

BackgroundCompensatory health beliefs may serve as one of many self-regulatory strategies that in... more BackgroundCompensatory health beliefs may serve as one of many self-regulatory strategies that individuals employ to maintain healthy lifestyles. Past research with samples from a general population has shown, however, that compensatory beliefs are ineffective in this regard and may even lead to inaction in future health-related behaviors such as eating healthily or being active. To better understand this phenomenon, in the present study, changes in compensatory health beliefs regarding various life domains were examined in a group of pregnant women.Participants and procedureIn a longitudinal study design, 166 women completed questionnaires in the first (t1), the second (t2), and the third (t3) tri-mester of their pregnancies. We assessed the level of their self-control as a trait (t1, t2, t3), compensatory health beliefs (t1, t2, t3), and unhealthy snacking (t3).ResultsAs predicted, self-control as a trait decreased and the levels of compensatory beliefs increased over time. A line...

Urban Diversities, Biosphere and Well-Being: Designing and Managing Our Common Environment (IAPS 20 Conference Proceedings on CD-Rom), 2008

Psychological restoration in nature as a source of motivation for environmental conservation

Frontiers Research Topics, 2020

This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics... more This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contac

Journal of Environmental Psychology

Frontiers in Psychology

In this article, we focus on how people resolve the dilemma between honest feedback and a prosoci... more In this article, we focus on how people resolve the dilemma between honest feedback and a prosocial lie depending on the context. In a pre-registered study (N = 455), we asked participants to choose between telling the blatant truth or lying prosocially regarding a dish made poorly by a stranger. The results showed that participants were most eager to pass on overly positive feedback when the stranger cared about cooking and was very sensitive to negative feedback. Perceived harm in truth telling mediated the relationship between desire to excel in a task with high ability to handle failure and choosing a prosocial lie.

Autism

Finding new ways of supporting the well-being of autistic adults is an essential goal for researc... more Finding new ways of supporting the well-being of autistic adults is an essential goal for research and practice. We tested the predictive value of attitudes towards autism (as neurodiversity or as a disorder) and identification with other autistic people, on the psychological distress and self-esteem of autistic adults ( n = 109). Adopting a neurodiversity attitude not only predicted higher self-esteem but also served as a protective factor against the negative impact of identification with other autistic people on psychological distress. These findings show that clinicians should be sensitive to the way autistic people understand autism and the extent to which they identify with the autism community, as these factors relate to their well-being. Lay abstract Autistic adults experience a high level of distress. Finding new ways to support their well-being is an important goal for researchers and clinicians. We assessed the way autistic adults view their autism, as a disorder or as a ...

In this article we focus on the dilemma between honesty and care that people often experience. We... more In this article we focus on the dilemma between honesty and care that people often experience. We argue that people in general prefer a prosocial lie to blatant truth when the former is more useful to the recipient. When there is no chance for improvement, or it is not being sought, a prosocial lie is chosen and perceived harmfulness of truth telling mediates the effect. In Study 1 we show that individuals prefer prosocial lies and that this preference interacts with evaluations of truthful and deceptive communication. Results of Study 2a showed that manipulation of information usefulness affects choices between prosocial lying and truth telling. When the unbeneficial features of a person are more permanent, a prosocial lie is strongly preferred (Study 2b). Importantly, when own interest is in conflict with the useful truth, the latter is no longer preferred (Study 3). In Study 4a and Study 5 we additionally employed behavioral measures to test the robustness of the effect.

Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

Social Psychology

We explore motivational processes stemming from bicultural identity goals of being Turkish and be... more We explore motivational processes stemming from bicultural identity goals of being Turkish and being German by investigating the effect of identity goal incompleteness versus completeness in the two identity goals on the use of multifinal means to self-symbolize German-Turkish cultural identity goals. Individuals incomplete in either or both identity goals were more likely than individuals complete in both identity goals to engage in multifinal self-symbolizing via social media activity (Experiment 1) and helping (Experiment 2). Incompleteness regarding the two identity goals had an additive effect on effort and elicited distinct patterns of subjectively experienced incompleteness for German and Turkish cultural identity goals (Experiment 2). These findings offer new insights relevant for symbolic self-completion theory and goal systems theory.

The study will extend prior work on the symbolic self-completion theory investigating the joint e... more The study will extend prior work on the symbolic self-completion theory investigating the joint effect of two activated identity goals on the choice of means for self-symbolizing. We conceptualize cultural identities as aspired-to selves an individual is committed to attain, so-called identity goals (Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982). Past research has shown that individuals who are disrupted in their striving for an identity goal, experience the state of self-incompleteness and increase their efforts toward that very goal by engaging in various activities that serve as means, to symbolize having the aspired-to identity (e.g., Gollwitzer et al., 2013). Such means are referred to as identity-symbols and the process is labeled self-symbolizing (Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982). The study aims to test whether bicultural individuals (German Turks) will choose multifinal means (symbolizing both being German and being Turkish) over unifinal means (symbolizing either being German or being Turkish) ...

Motivation Science, 2021

According to symbolic self completion theory, individuals strive for their aspired-to identity go... more According to symbolic self completion theory, individuals strive for their aspired-to identity goals by accumulating symbols that indicate the possession of that very identity. If individuals lack such symbols, lose them, or fail to acquire them, a state of identity goal incompleteness is triggered that motivates identity goal-directed behavior (i.e., acquiring new identity symbols). We add to this framework an empirical investigation of the interplay between two identity goals, addressing the question: Will individuals who are incomplete regarding one identity goal be more or less likely to engage in symbolization behavior toward a second identity goal if no opportunity to strive for the first (incomplete) identity goal is at hand? We identify in two experiments the overlap between the two identity goals as a moderator variable determining to what degree individuals who are incomplete in one identity goal engage in behavior related to the other identity goal. Two experiments with working parents were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. In both experiments, incompleteness (vs. a control condition) regarding the participants' professional identity goal was induced, and overlap between the professional and parent identity goals was measured. We found that overlap regarding moral values (Study 1) and basic motives (Study 2) between the parent and professional identity goals was a positive predictor of parenting-related behavior in the incomplete, but not the control, condition. Incomplete participants with relatively low overlap were less likely, while incomplete participants with relatively high overlap were more likely, to engage in parenting-related behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2021

Autism, 2022

Attitude of mothers towards their children’s autism may play a role in mothers’ psychological wel... more Attitude of mothers towards their children’s autism may play a role in mothers’ psychological well-being. We investigated the predictive value of how mothers understand autism (as a neurodivergence or a developmental disorder) on their psychological distress. A group of 371 mothers of children on the autism spectrum participated in this study. We found that understanding autism as a neurodivergence was related to lower psychological distress in mothers, even after controlling for the level of autism symptoms. However, when controlling for caregiver burden, their attitude towards autism was no longer significant in explaining their psychological distress. These findings suggest that the way mothers understand autism may be important for their psychological adjustment. However, it also suggests that mothers of children on the autism spectrum may adopt different attitudes towards autism, depending on their child’s level of autism symptoms and the caregiver burden. Lay abstract Mothers ...

HSC Research Reports, 2015

Despite the very positive - as measured by market surveys - attitude towards eco-innovations and ... more Despite the very positive - as measured by market surveys - attitude towards eco-innovations and sustainability in general, the actual market penetration of green products and practices generally falls behind the expectations. In this paper we argue that considering difficulty of engagement, as used in the Campbell Paradigm, is of critical importance when modeling diffusion of eco-innovations. Such a notion of difficulty possesses three desired properties: (i) parsimony - it is represented by a single value, (ii) interpretability - it can be regarded as an estimator of the otherwise complex notion of behavioral cost, and (iii) applicability - it can be easily measured through market surveys. In an extensive simulation and analytical study involving empirically measured difficulty and an agent-based model spanned on different social network structures, we show that innovation adoption may exhibit abrupt changes in market penetration as a result of even small changes in difficulty. Th...

Appetite, 2021

OBJECTIVE This study explored affective mechanisms of compensatory health behaviors after acting ... more OBJECTIVE This study explored affective mechanisms of compensatory health behaviors after acting inconsistently with an important goal. Specifically, we propose and test a model in which regret over being in a situation that inhibits goal pursuit lays at the root of an individual's engagement in compensatory behaviors such as avoiding fatty foods and sweets. METHODS A total of 185 participants committed to being healthy took part in a longitudinal experiment (t0-t3). At t0 we measured the extent to which the goal of being healthy was important to participants. At t1 in the laboratory setting we manipulated inconsistency with the goal by asking participants to taste foods either more or less calorie-dense. After the manipulation (t2) we measured experienced regret. Twenty-four hours later (t3), participants declared whether they engaged in compensatory health behaviors such as avoiding fat-dense food and sweets. RESULTS As predicted, acting inconsistently with a goal was associated with higher levels of experienced regret. Higher regret, in turn, predicted engagement in compensatory health behaviors. Moreover, subjective importance of the goal moderated the effect of inconsistency on experienced regret in such a way that more committed individuals experienced more regret when they acted inconsistently with a goal. CONCLUSIONS We discuss the results and propose new avenues for research on compensation in broader contexts of situational and individual differences.

Scientific Reports, 2021

We aimed to investigate whether psychological intervention (single mental simulation) among women... more We aimed to investigate whether psychological intervention (single mental simulation) among women after cesarean surgery (CC) can affect their willingness to verticalize, actual verticalization, and the duration of the first mobilization. In this prospective randomised, controlled study, 150 women after CC were divided into 3 groups: experimental group with process-simulation with elements of relaxation, experimental group with outcome-simulation with elements of relaxation and control group with elements of relaxation only. After a 5-h stay in the post-operative room, women listened to a recording with a stimulation. Pain and anxiety of verticalization were measured before and after listening to the recording and after verticalization. Almost 12% more patients verticalized in the process-simulation group than in the control group. Percentages of mobilized patients were: 39.4% the process-simulation group; 32.8% in the outcome-simulation group; 27.7% controls (p = 0.073). Mobilizati...