Current Contents / Social & Behavioral Sciences

Experiencing child sexual abuse (CSA) can be considered a traumatic experience. Many negative shortand long-term consequences are linked with CSA. Dissociative experiences are one such consequence. The goal of the present study was to investigate the differences in nonperitraumatic dissociative experiences in different types and circumstances of CSA. Method: The present study utilized a representative sample of Lithuanians aged 18–29 (N = 2,000). The frequency of dissociative experiences was investigated between groups of participants who experienced different types of CSA (contact, noncontact, and verbal) and different circumstances of abuse (age of onset, number of perpetrators, and instances of abuse). Results: Participants who indicated having experienced multiple types of CSA demonstrated a higher frequency of dissociative experiences compared to those with no indicated CSA or a single type of CSA. No significant differences were found between different types of CSA. Contrary to expectations, no significant differences were found based on age of onset, number of perpetrators, or number of CSA instances, even though their strength of relationship with dissociation differed. Notably, those unable to recall CSA experiences consistently reported a higher frequency of dissociative experiences. Conclusions: Taken together, our findings confirm that there is a difference in frequency of dissociative experiences between those who experienced CSA and those who did not. Findings of the present study would suggest that different types of CSA should not be joined into one, since there may be important differences between them.

Higher education has traditionally been characterized by slow institutional change and entrenched norms, yet recent developments point to growing collective agency among academic staff, administrative professionals, and students. This study examines how different university actors—students, academic staff, and administrative staff—perceive diversity and their own agency in fostering change within higher education institutions. Drawing on Giddens’ theory of structuration and Bourdieu’s theory of practice, it explores how individual and collective actions both reproduce and transform institutional structures. Based on nine focus groups (𝑁 = 56) across three European universities in Austria, Spain, and Lithuania, the research applies a shared coding framework and a mixed‐methods approach, combining qualitative content analysis with quantitative pattern detection. The findings show that perceptions of diversity and agency are shaped more by professional role than institutional context. Students emphasize lived experiences and grassroots activism but feel structurally underrepresented; academic staff frame diversity as a pedagogical responsibility that is constrained by workload and limited institutional support; while administrative staff interpret agency through procedural discretion and professionalism, yet face bureaucratic inertia. Across all roles, the participants reveal a sense of “diversity fatigue,” reflecting the emotional labor of unsupported efforts towards inclusion. The study concludes that meaningful institutional change arises less from formal policy than from relational alignment, mutual recognition, and collaboration among actors, which enables everyday transformations within existing structures.

The profound physical, emotional, and social changes that accompany adolescence typically coincide with increases in maternal stress and decreases in the quality of the mother–child relationship. Does one follow from the other? The present longitudinal study tested the hypothesis that perceived changes in adolescent children forecast increases in maternal stress, which contribute to deteriorating mother–child relationship quality, anticipating more perceived changes in children. Participants were 299 mothers (Mage = 40.19, SD = 5.01 years) in two-parent households, with children (152 boys and 147 girls; ages 9–13) attending public primary and middle schools in an eastern Lithuanian community. Nearly all participants were ethnic Lithuanian. Maternal reports of stress, perceived changes in children, and mother–child relationship quality (i.e., negativity and social support) were collected three times over the course of a year. Direct longitudinal associations emerged from maternal perceptions of changes in the child to heightened maternal stress, from maternal stress to deteriorating mother–child relationship quality, and from diminished relationship quality to escalating changes in children. Full-longitudinal mediation analyses confirmed each of the hypothesized indirect effects: (a) Time 1 perceived changes in the child → Time 2 maternal stress → Time 3 mother–child relationship quality, (b) Time 1 maternal stress → Time 2 mother–child relationship quality → Time 3 perceived changes in the child, and (c) Time 1 mother–child relationship quality → Time 2 perceived changes in the child → Time 3 maternal stress.

In this study, we examine whether personality profiles moderate a recently proposed environmental behaviour–well-being model. The model is grounded in Self-Determination Theory, which suggests that pro-environmental behaviour may contribute to subjective well-being through the satisfaction of basic psychological needs. A total of 403 adolescents from four Lithuanian schools participated in this study. Participants were selected using a convenience sampling method, and the average participant age was 14.89 years (56.6% female). Structural equation modelling demonstrated acceptable model fit (CFI = 0.988, TLI = 0.986, NFI = 0.929, RMSEA = 0.043 [0.022–0.058], SRMR = 0.113, χ2 (353) = 416.92, p = 0.011) and indicated that personality profiles moderate several pathways within the environmental behaviour–well-being model. Additionally, the results showed that pro-environmental behaviour and connectedness to nature did not significantly predict subjective well-being across all personality profiles. The findings highlight the importance of considering personality differences when designing sustainability-related educational interventions aimed at promoting environmental citizenship and improving subjective well-being.

Grade vs. test discrepancies and social biases in grading are complex phenomena shaped by the interplay of student characteristics, teacher behaviors, curricular elements, and the school environment. Despite this complexity, research examining how these phenomena vary across schools and in relation to school and curriculum-specific characteristics remains limited. This study delves into the discrepancy between grades and standardized math and national language test scores within a cohort of 18,812 8th-grade students in Lithuania nested in 418 schools. Multilevel regression analysis unveiled a pattern: female students were over-graded, whereas those from low socioeconomic backgrounds and those with special educational needs were consistently under-graded. Biases related to gender and special education needs varied significantly across schools, and the effects were linked to school characteristics. There were both similarities and differences in patterns for math and national language grading bias.

The current study investigates the Simple Model of Environmental Citizenship (SMEC) in a representative sample of Lithuanian emerging adults. The SMEC is a practical model of assessing environmental citizenship and is intended to be simple to use in interventions and longitudinal research. A total of 700 individuals (50% female) with a mean age of 30.6 years participated in the survey. The participants filled in a questionnaire comprising measures assessing all the components of the SMEC as well as a personality trait measure. Participants were clustered by their personality traits and the resulting profiles were used as a moderator for the SMEC. The results revealed that the SMEC functions differently for individuals possessing different personality trait patterns and that in order to promote environmental citizenship or to engage in education for environmental citizenship, different strategies might be more effective for different individuals.

This article thematizes the specific process of cancer detection in radiology, which presupposes a delicate synthesis of the specifics of oncoradiology images and the skilful actions performed by the radiologist. The enactment of cancer via meaningful action rather than recognizing static depiction puts the structures of image consciousness into the wider context along with memory, free imagination and amodal completion, among others. Hence, by way of reinterpreting phenomenological projects via enactivism and incorporating them into the radiologist’s work (cases, radiograms), medical diagnostics in general and oncoradiology in particular presuppose a multimodal categorial structuring (of meaning) that goes far beyond direct sensory givens. In most branches of radiology, we cannot tell what the cancer is without attending to the multitude of its appearance and the perceptual and imaginative strategies of those who make it appear. As such, this article also considers the wider problem of how knowledge is related to the (embodied) subjectivity in a particular social setting.

Social role theory posits that binary gender gaps in agency and communion should be larger in less egalitarian countries, reflecting these countries’ more pronounced sex-based power divisions. Conversely, evolutionary and self-construal theorists suggest that gender gaps in agency and communion should be larger in more egalitarian countries, reflecting the greater autonomy support and flexible self-construction processes present in these countries. Using data from 62 countries ( N = 28,640), we examine binary gender gaps in agentic and communal self-views as a function of country-level objective gender equality (the Global Gender Gap Index) and subjective distributions of social power (the Power Distance Index). Findings show that in more egalitarian countries, gender gaps in agency are smaller and gender gaps in communality are larger. These patterns are driven primarily by cross-country differences in men’s self-views and by the Power Distance Index (PDI) more robustly than the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI). We consider possible causes and implications of these findings.

The article deals with the issue of spatial plans at the local level. The aims of this paper are (1) extracting the characteristics of local spatial plans that can be compared more broadly (2) identifying, on this basis, the role of spatial plans at the local level in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In achieving these aims, the authors have critically examined spatial plans and their performance, as well as the planning systems they belong to. Hence, they have investigated the types of local plans in each country, their legal features, and the layout of their content. This examination has revealed a host of problems in the workings of the CEE planning systems. The article highlights those spatial planning issues that could be the subject of more in-depth international comparisons. The study provides additional evidence that in countries where spatial plans are legislated, there are more (mutually differentiated) legal problems in their application. Such problems have been analyzed. Besides procedural problems, discrepancies between the contents of different types of plans (e.g., general plans and detailed plans) are very often a problem. The paper also proposes a novel method for detailed comparisons of selected aspects of spatial plans. It can be applied to a large number of countries and also to other aspects of spatial planning. Last but not least, the paper emphasizes the need for a detailed multi-stage consultation of each aspect to be compared.