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Publications
Publications (220)
Objective
To examine short- and long-term effects of a group singing program on older adults’ perceived physical and mental health levels, and also investigate subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive/negative affect and hedonic balance), body balance and serum biomarkers (C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate) as putative...
Objectives:
Group singing (GS), as an art-based intervention, has demonstrated a wide range of biopsychosocial benefits in older adult participants. However, the factors that predict the adherence of older adults to these programs and that moderate the intervention outcomes were not yet studied, which is the aim of this study.
Methods:
A randomi...
Contact with natural environments is associated with good health and well-being. Although childhood nature experiences may be important in the development of an individual's relationship with nature and subsequent well-being, previous studies have tended to focus on ‘nature’ in general, and the mechanisms by which childhood experiences influence we...
Housing has been acknowledged as a basic human need with an impact on health and well-being. Since older people tend to be more exposed to features in their home environment, it is important to identify specific vulnerabilities. This study used cross-sectional data of 40,185 respondents from the 2014 European Social Survey Round 7 to explore the re...
Aim
This scoping review aims to examine what determinants of behaviours, beyond knowledge, are used as per the theoretical domains framework (TDF) in relation to the research design and findings in the selected studies related to healthcare professionals and medical cannabis (MC).
Subject and methods
The use of MC has been legalized in various cou...
Através da primeira edição do Orçamento Participativo Portugal (OPP), o ano de 2017 viu nascer uma oportunidade para promo- ver o envelhecimento ativo através de um projeto pioneiro em Portugal, intitulado “Grupos de Canto para Seniores”.
Recent wastewater analyses performed in care homes for the elderly showed high levels of water pollution resulting from pharmaceutical waste. The way people perceive the environmental risk of pharmaceuticals can contribute to reversing this problem, but the factors that influence risk perception remain relatively unknown. The aims of the study are...
A experiência de eventos traumáticos militares pode resultar em diversas consequências psicológicas e sociais para o indivíduo e para os seus sistemas mais próximos, como as suas famílias. Este estudo contribuiu para uma visão psicossocial destes fenómenos, salientando a importância de ter em consideração não o indivíduo isolado, mas os seus difere...
A experiência de eventos traumáticos militares pode resultar em diversas consequências psicológicas e sociais para o indivíduo e para os seus sistemas mais próximos, como as suas famílias. Este estudo contribuiu para uma visão psicossocial destes fenómenos, salientando a importância de ter em consideração não o indivíduo isolado, mas os seus difere...
Involvement in social and community activities has been identified as a key factor in health and well-being. This paper focuses on the health and well-being benefits of a particular type of group involvement: associative participation. The main aim is to identify the type of participation that brings more benefits to the members. Based on previous...
Group singing may be an optimal intervention strategy to promote active ageing and well‐being; however, evidence with experimental validity is scarce. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing the effects of a 34‐session singing group programme (SGP) on participants' subjective and social well‐being and the mediating roles of social identificat...
Objective: To examine short- and long-term effects of a group
singing program on older adults’ perceived physical and mental
health levels, and also investigate subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive/negative affect and hedonic balance), body balance and serum biomarkers (C-reactive protein and erythrocyte
sedimentation rate) as putativ...
O Manual do Programa da Intervenção “Cante Pela Sua Saúde” (Sing4Health) constitui um instrumento orientador para Intervenções de Canto em Grupo que sejam dirigidas a seniores com 60 ou mais anos de idade e que visem promover o seu bem-estar subjetivo e social, funções cognitivas, e saúde física e mental. O Programa foi desenvolvido no âmbito do Pr...
This study explores whether there are differences in several environmental dimensions, when the European Region and Generation cohort are considered. In doing so, this study compares millennials in North and South Europe with members of Generation X in three environmental dimensions: attitudes, personal norms, and behavior. Using data from the Euro...
There is a growing interest in decentralized wastewater treatment systems, especially in regions with water scarcity problems or water management issues. This study aims to determine whether the perceived advantages and disadvantages (leading to acceptance) of decentralized wastewater plants in such regions are the same in regions where the populat...
Children are spending less time in nature. They are not taking advantage of the benefits that are related to experiencing nature, such as the improvement of attentional capacity and stress reduction. Furthermore, they are also losing the opportunity to assess nature in a more positive way and to become more connected to nature, factors that appear...
Background:
Singing is a multimodal activity that requires physical, cognitive and psychosocial performance, with benefits to various domains of well-being and health in older adults. In recent years, research has increasingly studied group singing as an important cost-effective intervention to promote active and healthy aging. However, the specif...
This study aims to contribute to the risk management of pharmaceuticals in the environment, illustrating risk perceptions of lay people and experts from Southwestern Europe (Portugal, Spain, and France). The psychometric paradigm was applied to assess risk regarding four hazards: pharmaceuticals in the environment (i.e., broadly framed), pharmaceut...
In this article, we focus on two demonstrations against climate change that took place in Portugal on the 12th of November 2016 and the 29th of April 2017. Two separate studies were conducted on the same protests. In Study 1, we conducted a quantitative study (N = 259), to examine the role of socio-demographics and socio-psychological predictors in...
Varied categorisations of residential distance to bluespace in population health studies make comparisons difficult. Using survey data from eighteen countries, we modelled relationships between residential distance to blue spaces (coasts, lakes, and rivers), and self-reported recreational visits to these environments at least weekly, with penalised...
Negative images of old age can harm older individuals’ cognitive and physical functioning and health. Yet, older people may be confronted with age stereotypes that are inconsistent with their own personal beliefs. We examine the implications for older people's wellbeing of three distinct elements of age stereotypes: their personal beliefs about the...
The Spanish influenza epidemic (1918–19) was the biggest demographic disaster in the 20th century and, for some, the greatest epidemic in human history. Despite its enormous worldwide relevance, until recent years there were few studies on this catastrophe. This silence has been usually understood as the result of the competition with another world...
The presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment is an emergent unknown environmental problem, linked to increased production and consumption of pharmaceuticals and, as such, understanding risk perception is fundamental. This study focuses on exploring causes (trust and knowledge) and effects (intention and proper individual disposal of pharmaceu...
Anualmente milhões de crianças vivem expostas à violência interparental estando, por isso, mais vulneráveis ao surgimento de problemas comportamentais, emocionais, cognitivos e fisiológicos, com impacto no seu desenvolvimento. O presente estudo teve como objetivo analisar se a exposição das crianças à violência física interparental se encontrava re...
Urbanization, costs of green space maintenance, and diminishing connection between people and nature all exert pressures on urban green space. This is regrettable as green space has the potential to create wins for environmental sustainability, health, and health equity. This paper explores this potential triple win and investigates how to increase...
European policies recommend holistic approaches based on interdisciplinary teams when tackling the urban regeneration of residential buildings. This research presents the experience and findings of a collaborative research project between the disciplines of architecture and environmental psychology conducted in the Barrio das Estacas district of Li...
Understanding the key factors that influence smoking behavior, especially during adolescence, has a meaningful impact on public health. This study examined the impact of parent modelling, peer influence and peer selection on adolescent smoking behavior in two Portuguese cohorts followed for three years. A questionnaire was delivered in classes and...
Background: Exergames have been used as an innovative motor rehabilitation method with the main aim of improving motivation and exercise. As research interest in exergaming for rehabilitation is rapidly growing, a review of existing systematic reviews is important to synthesize the available evidence and provide recommendations.
Objectives: In this...
Objectives:
Group care for individuals with diabetes is a recognized educational practice, but techniques from narrative medicine using of literary works have never been incorporated in these programs. We designed a new educational model (i.e. the Close Reading and Creative Writing program) of group care for individuals with diabetes incorporating...
Recent findings have shown that exergames can facilitate physiotherapy. Environmental conditions, such as the inclusion of positive distractions, also seem to play a role in health recovery, but prior studies have never analysed their role in virtual environments. In this study we developed an exergame for the exercise of upper limbs by designing v...
Remote sensing and Virtual Reality (VR) are technologies that create new development opportunities in the field of serious games with application in physiotherapy. Thus, during a physiotherapy training session expressed by a game round the remote sensing of user body motion provides measurements that can be used for objective evaluation of physical...
Current European policies aim to promote the sustainable urban regeneration of housing stock while ensuring aging in place. Following these targets, this research proposes the Architectural and Psycho-environmental Retrofitting Assessment Method (APRAM) as an interdisciplinary decision support system, specifically designed to be applied in building...
This experimental study, in which 118 university students participated, addresses how environmental and altruistic cues induce energy-saving behavior and intention, and their interaction with environmental and altruistic values, thus testing the influence of context or situational variables in energy-saving behavior and intention. Additionally, it...
Past research suggests that the connection between values and people's behaviour may not be as straightforward and robust as has been claimed. We propose that a more holistic and discriminative view that acknowledges the influence of a specific combination of values on specific kinds of behaviour is needed. In the current project, we test two hypot...
The 1918-19 flu pandemic was the deadliest disease of all times. It is thought to have affected one out of three of the planet’s inhabitants, causing in just two years a number of fatalities that is similar to the two World Wars combined. This article deals with its incidence in Portugal, where, with more than 130,000 estimated deaths, the mortalit...
The goal of this work was to explore whether or not the intention of engaging could be understood (Study 1) and promoted (Study 2), by using an extension of the theory of planned behaviour. In Study 1, stakeholders from three European Mediterranean case studies were surveyed: Baixo Vouga Lagunar (Portugal), SCOT Provence Méditerranée (France), and...
The Ageism module fielded in the 2008–2009 European Social Survey (ESS) across 29 representative samples in the European region (with over 55,000 respondents) is the first major internationally comparable study of individual and societal attitudes to age differences, and ageism. This chapter provides an overview and a review of what has been discov...
Increasing the salience of aging has been shown to be a promising strategy to promote young adults' interest in saving for retirement. However, the processes responsible for this effect are still largely unknown. We hypothesize that increased savings choices will only occur when participants are also engaged in self‐relevant thoughts about their ow...
One of the main pursuits, yet most difficult, in monitoring studies is to identify the sources of environmental pollution. In this study, we have identified health-care facilities from south European countries as an important source of pharmaceuticals in the environment. We have estimated that compounds consumed in by the elderly and released from...
In this article, we assume an interdisciplinary approach to the study of why and how people transpose political considerations to their lifestyles. Our aims are threefold: to understand the meanings and perceptions of people engaged in lifestyle politics and collective action; to examine the motives guiding individual change; and to explore the lin...
Increasing the awareness of climate change causes is often considered the key to public support of mitigation and adaptation policies. However, higher awareness might not always relate to higher risk perceptions. Previous research suggests that a process of risk normalization might occur, wherein individuals more exposed and aware of hazards minimi...
Pro-environmental behaviour has often been studied as being the result of individual or rational decision making, despite the contributions from a more social approach to environmental psychology. This paper presents experimental research addressing the role of social identities and social norms in promoting pro-environmental behaviour. Following t...
The involvement of citizens in environmental decision processes is difficult to implement, and little is known about the psychological mediators for the technicians’ resistance. We tested the hypothesis that the subtle denial of human attributes of local stakeholders (dehumanisation) produces negative expectations regarding the engagement of commun...
Health messages framed to be congruent with people’s motivational orientation have been shown to be generally effective in promoting health behavior change, but some inconsistencies have been found. This study tested whether the perceived quality of a health message moderated the congruency effect in the domain of fruit and vegetable (FV) consumpti...
In recent years there have been growing expectations from policymakers towards social sciences in order to reach sustainability goals. Research on social norms is often used to promote changes in pro-environmental behaviour. However, the underlying social psychological mechanisms that explain those changes are not yet well described. This special i...
Background: Research provides evidence on the positive impact of support groups (SG), but the group processes that could promote that effect are under-researched. This systematically review aimed to available evidence of the group processes as potential mediators of the positive effect of SGs on health and well-being of informal caregivers of peopl...
The physical environment of healthcare settings can contribute to preventing or reducing patients' stress. Using Ulrich's theory of supportive design (1991), this study tested whether this relationship occurs because the physical environment promotes perceptions of control, positive distractions, and social support. The research disentangles the co...
Positive social relations are known to have a beneficial impact on health, however little is known about the links of health with online relationships. In this study we compare face-to-face and virtual friendships in their association with health. By building on previous results of studies conducted on the well-being of college students, we expect...
Support groups (SG) are practical resources used worldwide to help people dealing with life stress conditions. Research provides evidence about the positive impact of SG on health and well-being, but the group processes underlying this relation are scattered. This systematic review aimed to integrate the evidence about the group processes that migh...
Today, age discrimination is one of the most fundamental forms of discrimination endured by Europeans. In an aging society this carries important consequences for the overall health and wellbeing of European citizens. This chapter discusses how integrating Social Psychology with Gerontology theorizing may contribute to the design of proper research...
The construction of an industrial installation is frequently associated with important social impacts that influence the quality of life of nearby residents in different ways. The most obvious and well-documented are a decreased quality of the environment (noise, air pollution, dust and odors), which affects the level of stress, and both physical a...
Adaptation to climate change is a process that should engage different participants, including not only researchers and technicians but also other stakeholders and local individuals and, therefore, it is important to understand their beliefs on the local effects of climate change. Recent studies illustrate a linear relation between coastal distance...
Psychological theories of aging highlight the importance of social context. However, very little research has distinguished empirically between older people’s perception of how others in their social context perceive them (personal meta-perceptions) and the shared perceptions in society (societal meta-perceptions). Drawing on theories of intergroup...
AimThe main purpose of this study was to adapt the Restraint Scale (RS) to Portuguese and examine its psychometric properties, specifically its construct validity.Method
In this study, 238 normal-weight adults (82% women; Mean age = 36.6, SD = 15.0) participated in an online survey containing measures of Restraint Scale, Three Factor Eating Questio...
Portugal apresenta a taxa mais elevada de cuidados informais da União Europeia (12.4%) desempenhada por co-residentes (Barbosa & Matos, 2014), o que significa que predomina o tipo de cuidado familiar. Os cuidadores informais de pessoas com demência podem ser afectados pelo estigma e sobrecarga de trabalho (Kahn, Wishart, Randolph, & Santulli, 2016)...
In accordance with cognitive dissonance theory, individuals generally avoid information that is not consistent with their cognitions, to avoid psychological discomfort associated with tensions arising from contradictory beliefs. Information avoidance may thus make risk communication less successful. To address this, we presented information on red...
O consumo de tabaco continua a ser das principais causas evitáveis de morte e doença (Cartes & Byrne, 2013). A investigação mostra que as relações com família e pares são dos melhores preditores do consumo de tabaco entre jovens (Kobus, 2003). Extensa literatura mostra o impacto das relações sociais na saúde (Holt-Lunstad & Smith, 2012). A Psicolog...
This study aims to improve the understanding of the sociopsychological and technological aspects that influence the use of smart meters—innovative electricity meters that provide real-time data on consumption and are instrumental in increasing energy efficiency. Few studies have examined the sociopsychological factors that influence their use. We a...
Health inequalities are very well documented in epidemiological research: rich people live longer and have fewer diseases than poor people. Recently, a growing amount of evidence from environmental sciences confirms that poor people are also more exposed to pollution and other environmental threats. However, research in the social sciences has show...
Baptista, M.B., Silva, S., & Lima, M.L. (2003). The organizational and safety climate inventory (OSCI): reliability and validity. Working Paper, 4(03), Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Social, ISCTE.
Health messages are a commonly used way to promote changes in dietary habits but their efficacy could be enhanced by strategies such as the way in which the presented arguments are framed. This study aimed to test the effectiveness of framed messages (gain vs. loss) on behavioural intention and fruit and vegetable (FV) intake, comparing predictions...
Despite the accumulated evidence that retention is an ineffective and potentially harmful remedial strategy, several countries struggle with high levels of retention in compulsory schooling. This article provides evidence of the impact of the Portuguese national educational policy “Programa Mais Sucesso Escolar” (PMSE) using class size, class compo...
Coastal risk is already high in several parts of the world and is expected to be amplified by climate change, which makes it necessary to outline effective risk management strategies. Risk managers assume that increasing awareness of coastal risk is the key to public support and endorsement of risk management strategies - an assumption that underli...
To examine the effectiveness of matching health messages promoting fruit and vegetable intake to Health Action Process Approach (Schwarzer, 2008) stages of change.
In a randomized controlled trial, 205 undergraduate students (non-intenders n= 123; intenders n= 82) were exposed to one of three health messages, targeted at non-intenders, intenders, a...
In accordance with cognitive dissonance theory, individuals generally avoid information that is not consistent with their cognitions, to avoid psychological discomfort associated with tensions arising from contradictory beliefs. Information avoidance may thus make risk communication less successful. To address this, we presented information on red...
Successfully engaging consumers in a dialogue may provide opportunities for better tailored and more effective communication about food-related risks and benefits. Using an online deliberation concept and software, VIZZATA (TM), we explored the validity of a behavioral measure of deliberation in an online environment in the context of consumers’ pe...
Most policy documents on climate change highlight the need for stakeholder
engagement on policy making regarding local adaptation to climate change. There
appear to different rationales for this. Engagement is promoted as way to achieve
greater acceptance of policies and environmental awareness and to improve quality in
decision making. In parallel...
