Mihaela-Alexandra Gherman - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Mihaela-Alexandra Gherman

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Using moralization in anti-vaping public health messages as a persuasion strategy was recently re... more Using moralization in anti-vaping public health messages as a persuasion strategy was recently recommended to address the current vaping epidemic. However, previous findings indicated this could lead to moralized attitudes in the general population, which can be very difficult to change and could severely affect social cohesion and distort risk perception. Since the safety and efficiency of using electronic cigarettes as smoking cessation devices are still being investigated, we conducted a cross-sectional, experimental study on a convenience sample of 612 Romanian never vapers, never smokers to assess how exposure to moralizing public health messages about vaping might influence their trust in future scientific results about this topic. Participants were randomized into six groups according to the type of message (“moral,” “immoral,” “neutral”) and the type of effects of vaping on smokers’ health, documented in a future fictitious study (“health benefits,” “health risks”). Results ...

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Nurses have been frequently exposed to Potentially Morally Injurious Events (PMIEs) during the CO... more Nurses have been frequently exposed to Potentially Morally Injurious Events (PMIEs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to resource scarcity, they both perpetrated (self-PMIEs) and passively witnessed (other-PMIEs) moral transgressions toward the patients, severely violating their moral values. Our study investigated the impact of self- and other-PMIEs on work outcomes by exploring nurses’ episodic memories of these events and the basic psychological need thwarting associated with them. Using a quasi-experimental design, on a convenience sample of 463 Romanian nurses, we found that PMIEs memories were uniquely associated with burnout and turnover intentions, after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, general basic psychological need satisfaction at work and other phenomenological characteristics. Both self- and other-PMIEs memories were need thwarting, with autonomy and competence mediating their differential impact on burnout, and with relatedness—on turnover intentions...

Journal of Elder Abuse & Neglect

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in unprecedented exposure to Potentially Morally Injurious Events ... more The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in unprecedented exposure to Potentially Morally Injurious Events (PMIEs) for nurses, in which they were both moral transgressors and moral victims, with deleterious consequences on their psycho-social health and functioning. Our experimental design compared memories of PMIEs with memories of severe moral transgressions (SMTs), in which participants were only moral transgressors. Drawing from Self-Determination Theory and research on moral auto-biographical episodic memories, we assessed a conceptual model describing the impact of recalling a single PMIE or SMT event on nurses’ burnout, work satisfaction and adaptive performance. Our convenience sample comprised 614 Romanian nurses, and data was analyzed with path analysis, general linear modelling, and t-tests. Findings showed that memories of PMIEs, compared to SMTs, were more autonomy thwarting, being associated with more controlled work motivation, less moral learning, higher burnout, less work sat...

The present paper is included within a wider research program launched by de Rosa in 1994, aimed ... more The present paper is included within a wider research program launched by de Rosa in 1994, aimed at performing the meta-theoretical analysis of the scientific literature published on Social Representations Theory (SRT), and representing the unified framework of the EC-funded project (ITN-People MSCA-IDP 2013, no. 6072799, http://www.europhd.eu/SoReComJointIDP) and explores the state of the art of the Social Representations Theory (SRT) in the geo-cultural contexts of North America (Canada and the United States of America - USA), Australia and New Zealand, Asia and Africa, spatially and temporally, as well as from a conceptual, disciplinary, theoretical, empirical and thematic point of view. For all four geo-cultural papers, the Grid for Meta-Theoretical Analysis was applied on publications extracted from the So.Re.Com “A.S. de Rosa” @-library and meta-theoretically analyzed. The size of the samples was: 395 for North America, 107 for Australia and New Zealand, 194 for Asia and, resp...

Research background and sources: This empirical contribution addresses the dynamics of the knowle... more Research background and sources: This empirical contribution addresses the dynamics of the knowledge epidemiology via the meta-theoretical analysis of diversified body of literature on Social Representations, extracted from a larger number of more than 10000 bibliographic references filed in the repositories of the SoReCom”A.S.de Rosa”@-library, built up over two decades with an enormous effort of work team coordination and assessment by the project leader (de Rosa, 2014a, 2014d, 2015a, 2015b). The sources have been analysed using the specific tool, the last version (v.2014) of the Grid for meta-theoretical analysis developed by de Rosa. Objectives: We will present empirical evidence of the relevance of the SRT in various thematic domains in order to show its attractiveness for various disciplinary, thematic domains and topics. Five main macro-thematic areas, highly relevant from the societal point of view and core objects of study for other disciplinary and applied fields, have bee...

The aim of the current research was to investigate Romanians’ social representations of organic f... more The aim of the current research was to investigate Romanians’ social representations of organic foods and the connections between their self identification to the cultural referents related to organic foods and, respectively, their actual organic food consumptions. Study 1 was conducted on a sample of 74 participants, who filled in an associative map task (Dafinoiu & Crumpei, 2013). Results have shown that the nucleus of the representation comprised the following elements: price, health, authenticity and availability, while the peripheral zone was formed by evocations such as expensive, money, income, whims, supermarket, additives, benefits etc. The second study was conducted on a sample of 80 participants who filled in a Self Identification Conceptual Network (de Rosa & Holman, 2011) and a questionnaire measuring their actual food consumption. The findings revealed that people who self identify positively with health, openness to new, diet, health consciousness, food consciousness, informed choice, organic foods, trust and quality and negatively with convenience, price, suspicion, tradition, quantity consumed larger amounts of organic foods as compared to those who did not. Results are discussed in light of their contribution to the national and international literature on organic foods and social representations.

The aim of this research was to investigate Romanians’ social representations of ageing and posit... more The aim of this research was to investigate Romanians’ social representations of ageing and positive ageing, as well as the variations of these social representations according to the age and gender of the participants in what regards the centrality of the components and basic cognitive scheme activations. Study 1 was conducted on 80 participants who filled in two associative map tasks (Dafinoiu & Crumpei, 2013) that had as inductors “ageing” and, respectively, “positive ageing”. Results have shown a notable variation between the two social representations, in the sense that the latter was entirely made up of positive associations, whereas the former comprised both positive and negative associations. The second study was conducted on another sample of 80 participants (20 young adult men and 20 young adult women and, respectively, 20 mature adult men and 20 mature adult women) and it found by employing the questioning principle (“mise-en-cause”, Moliner, 1994) that two core elements ...

The purpose of our research is to investigate the effectiveness of three types of psychological i... more The purpose of our research is to investigate the effectiveness of three types of psychological interventions in both the prevention (Study 1) and treatment (Study 2) of tobacco addiction. Both studies implied a pragmatic parallel-group research design, participants being randomly allocated in one of the three arms of the study in an unblinded manner. The first study consists of 62 occasional, adolescent smokers who were selected according to the criteria proposed and tested in The Framingham Study (Gordon et al., 1975). They were randomly allocated to receive either: (a) an informative intervention; (b) an action and coping planning intervention; (c) an intervention that combined the two aforementioned types in tobacco smoking cessation or (d) a passive control group. Our second study was conducted on a sample of 62 participants who were addicted to cigarette smoking (according to Gordon et al., 1975 and to the DSM IV-R criteria – APA, 2000) between the ages of 23-25 and was aimed ...

The aim of our study was to develop and test the efficiency of a short informative intervention m... more The aim of our study was to develop and test the efficiency of a short informative intervention meant to increase mothers' adherence to breastfeeding while investigating potential associations between several social-cognitive variables and breastfeeding behaviour. Enhancing the rates of breastfeeding continuation is currently considered a very important objective for health educators due to its extensively documented benefits for newborns' health (Giles et al., 2014). Self-report questionnaires were administered to 74 women both two-three months before giving birth and when the child was three-six months old. Only 70 women participated to both stages of our study, 35 of which participated in our intervention, while the other 35 were assigned to the control condition. Results showed that mothers' perceived breastfeeding self-efficacy, their intention to breastfeed, their social norms and their outcome expectancies regarding breastfeeding were all associated with breastfee...

Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, 2019

Part of a larger research project aimed at performing the meta-theoretical analysis of the worldw... more Part of a larger research project aimed at performing the meta-theoretical analysis of the worldwide literature published on social representations theory (SRT), this article explores the state of art of the theory in the geocultural context of Asia, spatially and temporally, as well as from a conceptual, disciplinary, theoretical, empirical and thematic point of view. The Grid for MetaTheoretical Analysis was used on 194 sources, extracted from the So.Re.Com “A.S. de Rosa”@-library. Multi-step strategies of data analyses offer a diversified picture of findings: (a) descriptive statistics and geomapping with Tableau Desktop the bibliometric impact country by country; (b) structural multidimensional view of significant intersections between “meta-data” performing hierarchical clustering on the top of the multiple correspondence analysis. The three clusters detected reveal a shift from a more generic and applied tradition of research on SRT in 2002–2011 to a more theoretically oriente...

The purpose of this study is to investigate the differences between men and women regarding their... more The purpose of this study is to investigate the differences between men and women regarding their romantic and professional choices. A sample of 60 young women and a sample of 60 young men participated in an experiment to assess the likelihood of settling for less-desired romantic partners and jobs when their ideal romantic partner and job were difficult to attain. The experiment asked them to write down the five most important attributes of their ideal romantic partner; afterward, they were told they could stay with that partner if they spent six months in jail as opposed to staying with a partner that possesses the last three attributes they mentioned. The same procedure was applied to choosing a job. The results indicated that men were more likely to settle for a less than ideal partner, whereas women were more willing to overcome the proposed obstacle in order to stay with their desired romantic partner; when presented with the same two options regarding their ideal job, both men and women chose to overcome the imposed obstacle in order to obtain their ideal job. The attachment style of the participants had an influence only on the participants' choices regarding their romantic long term ideal partner . The results are discussed in the light of their contribution to gender differences research, work-family enrichment and ways of coping with work-family conflict.

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Using moralization in anti-vaping public health messages as a persuasion strategy was recently re... more Using moralization in anti-vaping public health messages as a persuasion strategy was recently recommended to address the current vaping epidemic. However, previous findings indicated this could lead to moralized attitudes in the general population, which can be very difficult to change and could severely affect social cohesion and distort risk perception. Since the safety and efficiency of using electronic cigarettes as smoking cessation devices are still being investigated, we conducted a cross-sectional, experimental study on a convenience sample of 612 Romanian never vapers, never smokers to assess how exposure to moralizing public health messages about vaping might influence their trust in future scientific results about this topic. Participants were randomized into six groups according to the type of message (“moral,” “immoral,” “neutral”) and the type of effects of vaping on smokers’ health, documented in a future fictitious study (“health benefits,” “health risks”). Results ...

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Nurses have been frequently exposed to Potentially Morally Injurious Events (PMIEs) during the CO... more Nurses have been frequently exposed to Potentially Morally Injurious Events (PMIEs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to resource scarcity, they both perpetrated (self-PMIEs) and passively witnessed (other-PMIEs) moral transgressions toward the patients, severely violating their moral values. Our study investigated the impact of self- and other-PMIEs on work outcomes by exploring nurses’ episodic memories of these events and the basic psychological need thwarting associated with them. Using a quasi-experimental design, on a convenience sample of 463 Romanian nurses, we found that PMIEs memories were uniquely associated with burnout and turnover intentions, after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, general basic psychological need satisfaction at work and other phenomenological characteristics. Both self- and other-PMIEs memories were need thwarting, with autonomy and competence mediating their differential impact on burnout, and with relatedness—on turnover intentions...

Journal of Elder Abuse & Neglect

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in unprecedented exposure to Potentially Morally Injurious Events ... more The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in unprecedented exposure to Potentially Morally Injurious Events (PMIEs) for nurses, in which they were both moral transgressors and moral victims, with deleterious consequences on their psycho-social health and functioning. Our experimental design compared memories of PMIEs with memories of severe moral transgressions (SMTs), in which participants were only moral transgressors. Drawing from Self-Determination Theory and research on moral auto-biographical episodic memories, we assessed a conceptual model describing the impact of recalling a single PMIE or SMT event on nurses’ burnout, work satisfaction and adaptive performance. Our convenience sample comprised 614 Romanian nurses, and data was analyzed with path analysis, general linear modelling, and t-tests. Findings showed that memories of PMIEs, compared to SMTs, were more autonomy thwarting, being associated with more controlled work motivation, less moral learning, higher burnout, less work sat...

The present paper is included within a wider research program launched by de Rosa in 1994, aimed ... more The present paper is included within a wider research program launched by de Rosa in 1994, aimed at performing the meta-theoretical analysis of the scientific literature published on Social Representations Theory (SRT), and representing the unified framework of the EC-funded project (ITN-People MSCA-IDP 2013, no. 6072799, http://www.europhd.eu/SoReComJointIDP) and explores the state of the art of the Social Representations Theory (SRT) in the geo-cultural contexts of North America (Canada and the United States of America - USA), Australia and New Zealand, Asia and Africa, spatially and temporally, as well as from a conceptual, disciplinary, theoretical, empirical and thematic point of view. For all four geo-cultural papers, the Grid for Meta-Theoretical Analysis was applied on publications extracted from the So.Re.Com “A.S. de Rosa” @-library and meta-theoretically analyzed. The size of the samples was: 395 for North America, 107 for Australia and New Zealand, 194 for Asia and, resp...

Research background and sources: This empirical contribution addresses the dynamics of the knowle... more Research background and sources: This empirical contribution addresses the dynamics of the knowledge epidemiology via the meta-theoretical analysis of diversified body of literature on Social Representations, extracted from a larger number of more than 10000 bibliographic references filed in the repositories of the SoReCom”A.S.de Rosa”@-library, built up over two decades with an enormous effort of work team coordination and assessment by the project leader (de Rosa, 2014a, 2014d, 2015a, 2015b). The sources have been analysed using the specific tool, the last version (v.2014) of the Grid for meta-theoretical analysis developed by de Rosa. Objectives: We will present empirical evidence of the relevance of the SRT in various thematic domains in order to show its attractiveness for various disciplinary, thematic domains and topics. Five main macro-thematic areas, highly relevant from the societal point of view and core objects of study for other disciplinary and applied fields, have bee...

The aim of the current research was to investigate Romanians’ social representations of organic f... more The aim of the current research was to investigate Romanians’ social representations of organic foods and the connections between their self identification to the cultural referents related to organic foods and, respectively, their actual organic food consumptions. Study 1 was conducted on a sample of 74 participants, who filled in an associative map task (Dafinoiu & Crumpei, 2013). Results have shown that the nucleus of the representation comprised the following elements: price, health, authenticity and availability, while the peripheral zone was formed by evocations such as expensive, money, income, whims, supermarket, additives, benefits etc. The second study was conducted on a sample of 80 participants who filled in a Self Identification Conceptual Network (de Rosa & Holman, 2011) and a questionnaire measuring their actual food consumption. The findings revealed that people who self identify positively with health, openness to new, diet, health consciousness, food consciousness, informed choice, organic foods, trust and quality and negatively with convenience, price, suspicion, tradition, quantity consumed larger amounts of organic foods as compared to those who did not. Results are discussed in light of their contribution to the national and international literature on organic foods and social representations.

The aim of this research was to investigate Romanians’ social representations of ageing and posit... more The aim of this research was to investigate Romanians’ social representations of ageing and positive ageing, as well as the variations of these social representations according to the age and gender of the participants in what regards the centrality of the components and basic cognitive scheme activations. Study 1 was conducted on 80 participants who filled in two associative map tasks (Dafinoiu & Crumpei, 2013) that had as inductors “ageing” and, respectively, “positive ageing”. Results have shown a notable variation between the two social representations, in the sense that the latter was entirely made up of positive associations, whereas the former comprised both positive and negative associations. The second study was conducted on another sample of 80 participants (20 young adult men and 20 young adult women and, respectively, 20 mature adult men and 20 mature adult women) and it found by employing the questioning principle (“mise-en-cause”, Moliner, 1994) that two core elements ...

The purpose of our research is to investigate the effectiveness of three types of psychological i... more The purpose of our research is to investigate the effectiveness of three types of psychological interventions in both the prevention (Study 1) and treatment (Study 2) of tobacco addiction. Both studies implied a pragmatic parallel-group research design, participants being randomly allocated in one of the three arms of the study in an unblinded manner. The first study consists of 62 occasional, adolescent smokers who were selected according to the criteria proposed and tested in The Framingham Study (Gordon et al., 1975). They were randomly allocated to receive either: (a) an informative intervention; (b) an action and coping planning intervention; (c) an intervention that combined the two aforementioned types in tobacco smoking cessation or (d) a passive control group. Our second study was conducted on a sample of 62 participants who were addicted to cigarette smoking (according to Gordon et al., 1975 and to the DSM IV-R criteria – APA, 2000) between the ages of 23-25 and was aimed ...

The aim of our study was to develop and test the efficiency of a short informative intervention m... more The aim of our study was to develop and test the efficiency of a short informative intervention meant to increase mothers' adherence to breastfeeding while investigating potential associations between several social-cognitive variables and breastfeeding behaviour. Enhancing the rates of breastfeeding continuation is currently considered a very important objective for health educators due to its extensively documented benefits for newborns' health (Giles et al., 2014). Self-report questionnaires were administered to 74 women both two-three months before giving birth and when the child was three-six months old. Only 70 women participated to both stages of our study, 35 of which participated in our intervention, while the other 35 were assigned to the control condition. Results showed that mothers' perceived breastfeeding self-efficacy, their intention to breastfeed, their social norms and their outcome expectancies regarding breastfeeding were all associated with breastfee...

Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, 2019

Part of a larger research project aimed at performing the meta-theoretical analysis of the worldw... more Part of a larger research project aimed at performing the meta-theoretical analysis of the worldwide literature published on social representations theory (SRT), this article explores the state of art of the theory in the geocultural context of Asia, spatially and temporally, as well as from a conceptual, disciplinary, theoretical, empirical and thematic point of view. The Grid for MetaTheoretical Analysis was used on 194 sources, extracted from the So.Re.Com “A.S. de Rosa”@-library. Multi-step strategies of data analyses offer a diversified picture of findings: (a) descriptive statistics and geomapping with Tableau Desktop the bibliometric impact country by country; (b) structural multidimensional view of significant intersections between “meta-data” performing hierarchical clustering on the top of the multiple correspondence analysis. The three clusters detected reveal a shift from a more generic and applied tradition of research on SRT in 2002–2011 to a more theoretically oriente...

The purpose of this study is to investigate the differences between men and women regarding their... more The purpose of this study is to investigate the differences between men and women regarding their romantic and professional choices. A sample of 60 young women and a sample of 60 young men participated in an experiment to assess the likelihood of settling for less-desired romantic partners and jobs when their ideal romantic partner and job were difficult to attain. The experiment asked them to write down the five most important attributes of their ideal romantic partner; afterward, they were told they could stay with that partner if they spent six months in jail as opposed to staying with a partner that possesses the last three attributes they mentioned. The same procedure was applied to choosing a job. The results indicated that men were more likely to settle for a less than ideal partner, whereas women were more willing to overcome the proposed obstacle in order to stay with their desired romantic partner; when presented with the same two options regarding their ideal job, both men and women chose to overcome the imposed obstacle in order to obtain their ideal job. The attachment style of the participants had an influence only on the participants' choices regarding their romantic long term ideal partner . The results are discussed in the light of their contribution to gender differences research, work-family enrichment and ways of coping with work-family conflict.