Goda Kaniušonytė

Mykolas Romeris University · Institute of Psychology

This exploratory study examined how Lithuanian emerging adults perceive adulthood. Participants (N = 313) were aged 18 to 23. Most of them (~70%) were studying at universities or other higher education institutions and some lived abroad. The questionnaire included various scales that measured positive youth development as well as a single open-ende...

When interviewing children in suspected child sexual abuse (CSA) cases, a common mistake is for interviewers to only ask questions that aim at confirming their initial assumption. Here, we sought to investigate whether experienced emotional states and psychophysiological parameters measured when following a (simulated) CSA interview would be associ...

It can be risky to be different. The healthy context paradox notes that a reduction in classroom bullying exacerbates problems for those who remain victimized (Huitsing et al., 2019). The present study extends this work by examining the costs associated with being a victimized social outlier [known also as a “social misfit” (Wright et al., 1986)] i...

Background Herein, we consider the hypothesis that mothers harm peer relations when they respond to child conduct problems by expressing disapproval of friends, which exacerbates the behavior problems they were presumably attempting to deter. Methods A community sample of Lithuanian adolescents (292 boys and 270 girls, aged 9–14 years) completed s...

Maternal disapproval of friendships, though often well-intentioned, can yield unintended consequences. Maternal friend prohibition can harm the child's social standing among peers, potentially leading to adjustment difficulties (Kaniušonytė & Laursen, 2023). Nevertheless, the specific mechanisms through which this interference impacts the stability...

Sustainable human resource management is gaining importance in organizations due to its role in developing a sustainable work environment and well-being. This paper discusses the relationship between employee perceptions of sustainable human resource management and job satisfaction in 54 countries. We propose that sustainable HRM is positively asso...

The present study examines perceptions of relationship quality as antecedents of best friendship dissolution. Participants included 230 students in Florida (United States; 54.3% girls; ages = 8–13; 39.6% European American, 27.0% Hispanic American, 21.7% African American, and 2.6% Asian American) and 496 students in Lithuania (49.0% girls; ages = 8–...

There is a critical gap in our understanding of how peer relationships contribute to positive youth development. To address this gap the current study uses longitudinal social network data to examine if fun youth were socially desirable, inclusive of peers, and positive agents of social influence during the transition to adolescence. Participants w...

Adolescents who lack traits valued by peers are at risk for adjustment difficulties but the mechanisms responsible for deteriorating well-being have yet to be identified. The present study examines processes whereby low athleticism and low attractiveness give rise to adolescent adjustment difficulties. Participants were public middle school student...

The participants were 105 (80 women, Mage = 23.78, SDage = 7.06) undergraduate and graduate students. Participants watched pre-recorded interviews with child avatars that were interviewed suggestively (vs. not), and that revealed details of CSA (vs. not). Both self-reported and facial expressions were assessed. In addition, participants answered qu...

METHODS In real time research participants (N = 60, M age = 22,75, SD = 6.74, age range 19-44) conducted two interviews with child avatars, while their psychophysiological indicators were captured on a storyboard. Later, iMotions allowed the overlaying of annotations of different time intervals on the timeline at points that will be used for furthe...

Introduction In forensic settings interviewers are advised to ask as many open-ended questions as possible. However, even experts may have difficulty following this advice potentially negatively impacting an investigation. Here, we sought to investigate how emotions and psychophysiological parameters are associated with question formulation in real...

Loneliness is detrimental to well-being, particularly during the transition into and early years of adolescence when peer relations are ascendant. Shy and emotionally sensitive youth, who often spend considerable time alone, have known vulnerabilities to loneliness. Studies of young children suggest that a supportive classroom context may mitigate...

Objective: We examined the prevalence of different types of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in Lithuania focusing on how these experiences were related to victim's age and relationship to the perpetrator. Methods: The participants came from a representative household survey of youth aged 18-29 and the sample consisted of 2000 participants (47.7 % w...

The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of emotions in the ability to assess a child sexual abuse (CSA) interview and recollection of details from it. The participants were 105 (80 women, Mage = 23.78, SDage = 7.06) undergraduate and graduate students. Participants watched pre-recorded interviews with child avatars that were interv...

The COVID-19 crisis has had a major impact on youth. This study examined factors associated with youth’s attitudes towards their government’s response to the pandemic and their blaming of individuals from certain risk groups, ethnic backgrounds, and countries or regions. In a sample of 5,682 young adults (Mage = 22) from 14 countries, lower perceiv...

The present study examines relations between adjustment problems and perceptions of maternal disapproval of friends in a sample of Lithuanian public middle-school students. The participants (ages 10 to 14) were 284 children (148 boys, 136 girls) who were involved in 142 stable friendships. Each friend described their own conduct problems, emotional...

If avatars are perceived as realistic, they may elicit emotional reactions among participants. Such emotional reactions may either facilitate (by increasing attention and interest as well as being more akin to the actual task) or impede (by disrupting cognitive processes) transfer of the learning to real interviews with actual children.

Free online copy of the article available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/EBQSJC2WDBIMM7EU8IKI/full?target=10.1080/1068316X.2022.2082422 Simulated avatar interview training has been proven to be effective in improving child sexual abuse interview quality. However, the topic of perceived realism of the avatars and whether they cause emotion...

Measurement of adolescent life satisfaction across cultures has not received much attention in previous empirical research. The present study evaluated measurement invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) among adolescents in 24 countries and regions (N = 22,710; age range = 13-19 years; 53% female). A single-factor model with residual...

The current study used a person-oriented approach to investigate (a) potential distinctive groups of women survivors of IPV based on their posttraumatic growth (PTG), centrality of event, resilience, and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) patterns, and (b) examine the role of sociodemographic (age, education, work status) and violence related (ph...

Access to clean drinking water is necessary for the health of a society, but how society perceives the sources of drinking water might lead to behaviors that are either favorable or unfavorable for environmental sustainability. Perceptions of water quality change still if one is faced with the potential risk of drinking contaminated water after an...

Connectedness to nature leads to positive outcomes for nature and society. These outcomes include nature conservation, environmentally friendly behaviors, happiness, improved cognitive performance and well-being. Given these benefits of being connected to nature it is important to understand what leads to it. Studies suggest that people differ in t...

The “greening” of individual behaviors is an important component of mitigating climate change and other human-caused environmental problems (Dietz et al., 2009). Adolescents are an important target group for promoting pro-environmental behaviors as they are at the life stage of forming their systems of beliefs, morals, and values. The important ind...

The current study focuses on the dynamics of adolescents’ risk perceptions regarding drinking water consumption before and after ecological disaster, i.e., the tire fire. The tire fire accident caused the air, groundwater, and soil pollution which negatively affected the quality of the drinking water. We hypothesized that the affected group would r...

Studies in adult samples suggest that biospheric values, environmental self-identity and personal norms are important antecedents of various pro-environmental behaviors. Recently few studies have tested these relationships in children and adolescent samples. Yet these findings have been derived from cross-sectional studies, thus there is a question...

The advent of the 21st Century brought a new interest in promoting Positive Youth Development and a renewed emphasis on understanding transactional relations between parenting and adolescent development. The present study examined conventional parent-driven pathways, which describe the putative role of parents in the formation of positive character...

This chapter explores the different pathways of the 5Cs model of Positive Youth Development (PYD) represented by competence, confidence, character, connection, and caring among adolescents in Lithuania. We present a longitudinal four-wave study with a community sample (N = 458, M age = 15.14, SD = .48 at T1, 52% females) and a quasi-experimental fo...

This study examines whether adolescent personality moderates longitudinal associations between perceived parenting practices and changes in adolescent resilience. A community sample of 442 (224 boys, 218 girls) Lithuanian adolescents completed surveys twice, 1 year apart, beginning in Grade 11 (M = 17.1 years old). Adolescent self-reports described...

http://gogreen.mruni.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/GoGreen-rekomendacijos.pdf

The aim of the current study was to assess the components of the intervention program “Aquatic”, targeted at the reduction of bottled water use in adolescence. The Comprehensive Action Determination Model was chosen as a theory of change for the development and evaluation of pro-environmental behavior intervention. We examined the impact of five ex...

We compared the extent to which a potentially groundwater-contaminating ecological disaster affected adolescents' bottled water consumption and perceived risk to use tap water. The affected group consists of 221 adolescents (56.6% were girls, Mage = 15.44, SDage = 0.60), while the control group consisted of 156 adolescents (56.4% were girls, Mage =...

The aim of the current study was to assess the components of the intervention program "Aquatic", targeted at the reduction of bottled water use in adolescence. The Comprehensive Action Determination Model was chosen as a theory of change for the development and evaluation of pro-environmental behavior intervention. We examined the impact of five ex...

There is a growing body of work showing the negative outcomes of parents who limit the autonomy of their emerging‐adult children. However, there has been little work examining children who limit their own autonomy in emerging adulthood by maintaining dependence on their parents. The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating role of cultur...

This representative study examines the prevalence of psychological, economic, physical, or sexual intimate partner violence (IPV), the main patterns of IPV exposure, and the interconnections between IPV and socio-demographic characteristics. The participants of the current cross-sectional study were 1173 women from a nationally representative surve...

Policy awareness increases the likelihood of policy-congruent behavior. Yet individuals may differ in the extent to which they notice certain policies; thus, psychological factors that explain behavior can have a differing effect on policy-congruent behavior of individuals. We investigated to what extent the relationship between normative, habitual...

The pernicious consequences of parent psychological control are well-established. Parenting style classification schemes, however, typically exclude this behavioral practice , focusing instead on demandingness and responsiveness. The present study applies a person-oriented approach to the classification of parenting styles, taking into account psyc...

A substantial body of research provides evidence for the role of parents in transferring pro-environmental attitudes, values, and behaviors to their children. However, little research has focused on children’s active attempts to influence parents’ pro-environmental behavior. In a survey involving 508 Lithuanian families, we examined the bidirection...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the direct and indirect (via objective and subjective markers of adulthood) relations of parental trust and emerging adults’ life satisfaction in samples of Lithuanian ( N = 399, ages 18–25) and Japanese ( N = 585, ages 18–25) emerging adults. Results revealed that parental trust was associated with emer...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the change in posttraumatic growth (PTG) of women survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) in Lithuania, in relation to the centrality of traumatic experience, identity exploration, and time after exposure to violence. The longitudinal study sample consisted of 217 women who experienced IPV, recruite...

The first aim of the study was to develop a theory-based multidimensional measure of contribution, as currently known measures address the single dimension – contribution to the community. Eighteen adolescents from Lithuania (50% girls) aged 15 to 17 participated in focus groups as the corresponding population to consult about the concept of contri...

The present study examines direct and indirect associations between perceptions of parenting and adolescent adjustment. We focus on self-esteem as an intervening variable. Participants included 446 girls and 471 boys ages 14 to 17 (M = 15.64) at the outset. A community sample of high school students was tracked for 3 consecutive years, completing a...

What We Learned The findings highlighted the importance of identity in forming and promoting the sustainable behavior.

European Union member states are already equipped with policies and strategies that can be followed to tailor local policies that aim to reduce bottled water use (i.e., EU, 2018, No.52018DC0028). However, little is known how adolescents’ self-reported awareness of policy is related to their bottled water use in the context of the Comprehensive Acti...

In adolescence, both identity concerns and feelings of loneliness are of utmost importance to the experiences of young people. Yet, a theoretically grounded hypothesis that identity and loneliness are developmentally related has never been tested. Thus, the aim of this study was to disentangle the longitudinal associations between identity processe...

The “greening” of individual behaviors is an important component of mitigating climate change and other human-caused environmental problems (Dietz et al., 2009). In pursuing the goal to understand pro-environmental behavior, attitudes and attitude change are mostly explored. But although attitudes are relatively good predictors, they only help expl...

Morality, competence, and sociability have been conceptualized as fundamental dimensions of social judgment that individuals use to evaluate themselves and other people and groups. The way in which adolescents perceive themselves along these dimensions affects the quality of their relationships across multiple social contexts. Given the centrality...

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of social support for posttraumatic growth (PTG) and identity processes in a sample of 217 women victims of intimate partner violence (IPV), recruited from women shelters, social support centers, and through counseling psychologists. The results of the study highlight the important role of social su...

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of social support for posttraumatic growth (PTG) and identity processes in a sample of 217 women victims of intimate partner violence (IPV), recruited from women shelters, social support centers, and through counseling psychologists. The results of the study highlight the important role of social su...

The “greening” of individual behaviors is an important component of mitigating climate change and other human-caused environmental problems (Dietz et al., 2009). Pro-environmental behaviors are “prosocial”—they benefit others, often with some direct costs to the actor (Schmitt et al., 2017). Up till now most of the pro-environmental research are fo...

Morality, competence, and sociability have been conceptualized as fundamental dimensions on which individuals ground their evaluation of themselves and of other people and groups. In this study, we examined the interplay between self-perceived morality, competence, and sociability and relationship quality within the core social contexts with which...

Given the necessity for actions in reducing the impact of climate change consequences on human and non-human life and environmental quality, it is clear that immediate engagement in complex and multi-context pro-environmental actions is inevitable. Adolescents are the near-future decision makers in reducing climate change related outcomes. Therefor...

The “greening” of individual behaviors is an important component of mitigating climate change and other human-caused environmental problems (Dietz et al., 2009). Pro-environmental behaviors are “prosocial”—they benefit others, often with some direct costs to the actor (Schmitt et al., 2017). In this study, we see pro-environmental behavior as more...

The need for human behavioral modification toward more pro-environmental behaviors is well recognized (Robertson & Barling, 2013). One viable way is to promote prosocial behavior in adolescence. Additionally, prosocial behaviors are beneficial not only for the broader environment but for adolescent’s adjustment (Eisenberg et al., 2015) and successf...

Despite increased awareness of the widespread and damaging nature of violence against women, violence by intimate partners persists as a common, hidden problem for women worldwide (World Health Organization [WHO], 2017). Intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with a wide variety of mental health indicators (Beydoun et al., 2012). Self-concep...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an important gender-based, social, and public health problem, affecting women globally (World Health Organization [WHO], 2017). Halpern et al. (2009) found that large number, i.e. 27 percent, of women reported IPV victimization in emerging adulthood, thus it is particularly important to explore the effects of IPV...

Experiencing stressful life events contributes to poorer psychological and vulnerable emotional states Experiencing stressful life events contributes to poorer psychological and vulnerable emotional states (Buckner et al., 2004). However, some authors argue that in general, growth tends to occur after the primary resolution of trauma (Tadeschi & Ca...

Intimate partner violence (IPV, physical, sexual, economic/financial, and/or psychological abuse) that occurs in all levels of intimate relationships seriously undermines women’s well-being. The negative psychological consequences of IPV include lowered self-esteem, increased levels of anxiety, depression, eating disorders, posttraumatic stress dis...

Emotional separation and parental trust in parent-adolescent relationships are important factors for adolescent identity formation. However, prior research findings on emotional separation are inconsistent. This study aimed to conduct a more rigorous examination of the associations of emotional separation and parental trust with identity synthesis,...

The purpose of this study was to examine the links between relationships with parents, identity styles, and positive youth development (PYD), conceptualized as “contribution” to self, family, and community, in Lithuanian youth during the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood. In Study I, we sought to examine how positive relationships w...

AIM: Along with the great importance of individual characteristics of the adolescent, positive youth developmental model (PYD) emphasizes the importance of family context and parent-child relationships (Lerner et al., 2005; Chand et al, 2013). According to the self-determination (SDT) theory, there are three most important aspects of parenting: aut...

Positive youth development (PYD) is strengths-based model focused on the main assumption that the youth possess particular strengths and have potential for healthy successful development. PYD model recognizes importance of an individual’s and his or her environment’s (e.g. family context) connectivity and how those relationships shape human develop...

The present investigation evaluated multiple patterns of change and stability in Berzonsky’s identity styles (informational, normative, and diffuse-avoidant) in a four-annual-wave longitudinal study with 468 adolescent boys and girls from Lithuania. A combination of mean level changes, high rank-order stability, and high profile stability has been...

Šio tyrimo* tikslas – atskleisti jaunuolių, esančių tapsmo suaugusiu periode, nerimastingumo / depre­siškumo ir tapatumo procesų (įsipareigojimo, išsamaus tyrinėjimo, įsipareigojimo persvarstymo) sąsa­jas, kontroliuojant lytį ir amžių. Tyrime dalyvavo 491 18–29 metų jaunuolis (74,7 proc. merginos). Buvo naudota Utrechto tapatumo skalė (U-MICS) bei...

The negative effect of parental psychological control on offspring adjustment have been well documented (Barber, Olsen, & Shagle, 1994; Bögels & Brechman, 2006), but few studies have examined the independent impact of mother’s and father’s parenting practices, and the role of adolescent's externalizing and externalizing problems on parental behavio...

After LCGA analysis three PYD trajectories were identified: increasing, decreasing and mid-stable Informational identity style: • Time effect – significant (r=.21) • Interaction effect – non significant (r=.11) • Between PYD trajectories – significant (r=.22) • Post hoc: Decreasing different from increasing and mid-stable Normative identity style:...

Positive youth development (PYD) is strengths-based model focused on the main assumption that the youth possess particular strengths and have potential for healthy successful development. PYD model recognizes importance of an individual’s and his or her environment’s (e.g. family context) connectivity and how those relationships shape human develop...

Poster

Parental monitoring is one of the central dimensions of parental behavior that is linked with children’s adjustment, development and well-being. Monitoring is parental awareness of children’s whereabouts and knowledge of their activities and adaptations (Kerr, & Stattin, 2000; Small, & Kerns, 1993).Particular importance of family context and parent...

The objective of this study was to systematically review the psychometric properties of the measures used in assessing the psychosocial well-being status of children and adolescents. This review updates and expands on the previous review of the literature on child well-being in order to assess all available studies from 2000 to 2013 on the measurem...

The purpose of this study was to explore empirical associations between parental monitoring and for the first time contribution to self, family and community, as outcome of positive youth development, across time among Lithuanian youth. Data for this study are drawn from the first two available waves of an ongoing longitudinal Positive Youth Develo...

Poster

Pathways of positive parental practices to positive youth development are different between mothers and fathers. Transformational parenting plays moderating role in relationship between fathering practices and PYD.

Poster

Positive youth development (PYD) is strengths-based model that recognizes importance of an individual’s and his or her environment’s connectivity and how those relationships shape human development (Benson and Saito, 2000; Benson, 2003; 573 Lerner 2005; Fredricks and Eccles, 2008; Chand et al, 2013). The literature has distinguished five positive y...

Positive youth development (PYD) is a strengths-based model that recognizes importance of an individual’s and his or her environment’s connectivity and how those relationships shape human development (Benson and Saito, 2000; Benson, 2003; Lerner 2005; Fredricks and Eccles, 2008; Chand et al., 2013). The literature has distinguished five positive yo...