Zsófia Csajbók

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Professor at Faculty of Humanities Charles University in Prague

Aims . Parental postpartum depressive symptoms have been extensively studied, but the combined longitudinal depression trajectories of parents and their long-term development beyond the postpartum period remain largely underexplored. We identified dyadic longitudinal depressive symptom trajectories in new parents, followed over an 11-year period, a...

Couples often resemble each other in characteristics like depression, but the reasons for this homogamy (i.e., similarity) remain unclear. We investigated two potential mechanisms: preference for a self-similar partner and convergence (i.e., increasing similarity) over time. In a nationally representative sample of 2,793 Czech individuals who we su...

While there is substantial research on what people want in their romantic and sexual partners, much of this work focuses on WEIRD, youthful samples, fails to consider the role of undesirable characteristics (i.e., things people do not want in partners) at all, or in conjunction with desirable characteristics (i.e., things people do want in partners...

Background and objectives The mental health of healthcare workers (HCWs) may have improved after the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to model the trajectories of psychological distress, depressive symptoms, and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic and toward its end in HCWs in Czechia and investigate, which COVID-19 work stressors were associated wi...

Aims: We aimed to investigate the association of household crowding in childhood with trajectories of depressive symptoms in middle-aged and older adults. Methods: We studied 47,010 participants (56 % women, 63 years at baseline) from SHARE. Using multinomial logistic regression, we estimated odds ratio (OR) with 95 % confidence interval (CI) fo...

Mate value is an important concept in mate choice research although its operationalization and understanding are limited. Here, we reviewed and evaluated previously established conceptual and methodological approaches measuring mate value and presented original research using individual differences in how people view themselves as a face-valid prox...

Background: e aimed to disentangle within-person and between-person effects in the temporal relationship between depressive symptoms and cognitive function. Methods: We performed a prospective population-based cohort study on participants of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. Cognitive function was assessed by tests on verbal...

The aim was to investigate the association of parental education at birth with cognitive ability in childhood and young adulthood and determine, whether functional connectivity of the salience network underlies this association. We studied participants of the Czech arm of the European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood who underwent asse...

Minority stress theory explains psychological vulnerability in sexual minorities; however, data is scarce in the Central and Eastern European region. Combining the minority stress model with the Psychological Mediation Framework, we tested a theoretically developed path model. Participants were 1452 (Mage = 24.9 years) Czech sexual-minority individ...

Cognitive function, physical activity, and depressive symptoms are intertwined in later life. Yet, the nature of the relationship between these three variables is unclear. Here, we aimed to determine which of physical activity or cognitive function mediated this relationship. We used large-scale longitudinal data from 51,191 adults 50 years of age...

Mate choice appears to be driven by a set of mate preferences. It is, however, unclear how preferences for individual characteristics are integrated into actual mate choice decisions. According to the Additive model, the most desirable partner is the one with the highest overall sum of relevant characteristics. In contrast, the Threshold model pred...

The occurrence of depression is influenced by social relationships, however, most studies focus on individuals, not couples. We aimed to study how depressive symptoms of couples evolve over time and determine, which characteristics are associated with their distinct trajectories. A multi-centric cohort sample of 11,136 heterosexual couples (mean ag...

There remains a lack of conclusive evidence as to the merit of season of birth as a predictor of mental illness across contexts. We studied 72,370 individuals (55% women; mean age 66) from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. Depressive symptoms were assessed with EURO-D scale and symptoms of anxiety with modified Beck Anxiety Inv...

Mate preference research predominantly focused on what people desire in a romantic partner, i.e., dealmakers. It was demonstrated that undesirable traits (dealbreakers) may weigh more in mate choice decisions than desirable traits. We conducted four studies to investigate the key dimensions on which these aversive traits are measured, how the dealb...

Aims To investigate the associations of physical-activity trajectories with the level of cognitive performance (CP) and its decline in adults 50 years of age or older. Methods We studied 38 729 individuals (63 ± 9 years; 57% women) enrolled in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Physical activity was self-reported and CP...

PurposeWe aimed to study sex differences in the association of childhood socioeconomic position (SEP) with later-life depressive symptoms, the mediating effect of education and explore regional differences across Europe.Methods The study included 58,851 participants (55% women, mean age 65 years) from the multicentre, population-based Survey on Hea...

Objectives: To investigate the associations of physical-activity trajectories with the level of cognitive performance and its decline in adults 50 years of age or older. Methods: We studied 38729 individuals (63 years; 57% women) enrolled in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Physical activity was self-reported and cogni...

We aimed to explore sex differences in the association of childhood socioeconomic position (SEP) with the level of cognitive performance and the rate of cognitive decline. We studied 84,059 individuals (55% women; mean age 64 years) from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. Sex differences in the association of childhood SEP (hous...

The aim was to investigate the pattern and rate of cognitive decline across distinctive trajectories of depressive symptoms in older adults. In this prospective multinational cohort study on 69,066 participants (on average 64 years at baseline, 55% women), assessments of cognitive functions (immediate recall, delayed recall, verbal fluency) and dep...

Mate choice is assumed to either follow the Additive Model, which predicts that a potential partner with the highest sum of preferred characteristics will be chosen over a candidate with a lower overall score. Alternatively, the Threshold Model predicts that individuals have a certain threshold for each characteristic and potential partners who do...

Recent research suggested that individuals weigh obnoxious traits in a potential partner (i.e., dealbreakers) more severely than the preferred characteristics (i.e., dealmakers). In our previous studies we identified the most important 7-7 relationship dealbreakers and dealmakers. Following the established “budget allocation” paradigm our aim was t...

Objective. Sexual Strategies Theory (SST) suggests that men and women have different benefits when engaging in long- and short-term relationships with multiple distinguished objectives (e.g., acquiring good genes or resources). Several previous studies tested variation in mating strategies using preferred characteristics with inconclusive results....

OBJECTIVES: To assess the extent of the treatment gap for mental disorders in the Czech Republic, determine factors associated with the utilization of mental health services and explore what influences willingness to seek mental health care. METHODS: Data from the CZEch Mental health Study, a nationally representative study of community-dwelling a...

Mate value is a construct that can be measured in various ways, ranging from complex but difficult-to-obtain ratings all the way to single-item self-report measures. Due to low sample sizes in previous studies, little is known about the relationship between mate value and demographic variables. In this article, we tested the Mate Value Scale, a rel...

It has been suggested that coupled individuals tend to adjust their ideal partner preferences according to their actual partner. In Study 1, we developed a mate preference trait-list and found a four-factor structure (Physical attractiveness, Status/Resources, Vitality, and Warmth/Trustworthiness), which we confirmed in Study 2. In Study 3, we comp...

Substantial evidence in animals suggests that mate selection is positively influenced by relative dissimilarity at genes in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), and that MHC-disassortative preferences are mediated by odour. However, evidence for similar preferences in humans is mixed. We tested odour preferences in a sample of 56 monozygotic...

The concept of mate value involves laypeople’s understanding of how much they are ‘worth’ as potential romantic partners. Although it is a useful concept, there is no agreement in how to measure it. Moreover, there is much theorizing but not so much data about its relationship with demographic variables. Study 1 tested the convergent and discrimina...

Objective. Most of the research on mate preferences has focused on what people desire in a partner, and not on dealbreakers, i.e. what traits make people reject a potential mate. Recently, Jonason et al (2015) published a multi-study paper presenting extensive research on dealbreakers, emphasizing their importance. However, their items loaded on a...

Objective. A potential mate can be assessed along several factors (e.g., warmth, attractiveness, status, intelligence). How do these evaluations determine the overall desirability of a potential partner? Using a school/exam analogy, one could devise at least two strategies: (1) taking some overall evaluation based on the distinct ‘grades’ (e.g., ‘G...

Objective. Mate value refers to how a person is appreciated as a potential partner on the mating 'market'. It can be assessed either along distinct factors or as a general evaluation without articulating its components. In this research, we examine and correlate general mate value as measured by a short scale, the MVS (Edlund & Sagarin, 2014) to di...

The goal of the studies reported here was first to explore and confirm a factor structure of evaluations of actual and ideal partners as well as oneself, then validate the factors by testing classic hypotheses from evolutionary psychology on the factor means, and finally, to use the factors to predict self-perceived mate value and relationship sati...

Objective. It can be questioned whether homogamy is predicted better along general mate value or separate factors. Evolutionary theories suggest complementarity in terms of different aspects of mate value, e.g., between male status and female attractiveness. Assortativity is also related to relationship satisfaction, although either in a linear or...

Az eddigi – nagyrészt evolúciós megközelítésű – kutatások szerint a lehetséges partnerek értékelése olyan dimenziók mentén történik, amelyek tükrözik a partnerek reprodukciós értékét. Bár számos kutatás részben különböző faktorszerkezeteket mutatott ki ezekben az értékelésekben, van ezekben egy konzisztens mintázat: míg egyes dimenziók a partner ge...

A szociométer-elmélet szerint az önértékelést befolyásolja, hogy vannak-e az egyénnek másokkal kielégítő kapcsolatai (Brase & Guy, 2004; Leary & Baumeister, 2000). Ebből az következik, hogy a párkapcsolatok is befolyásolják, hogyan észleli az ember önmaga párértékét, vagyis hogy mennyire tartja magát kívánatos párkapcsolati partnernek. A kapcsolati...

Previous research has shown that evaluations of prospective mates are organised along dimensions that reflect the reproductive value of the partner. Although several studies yielded partly different factor structures, there seems to be a consistent pattern in the results: some dimensions are related to the quality of genes (e.g. physical attractive...

Sokszínű kortárs segítés-egy nemzetközi tapasztalatcsere tanulságai A szerzők, az ELTE Kortárs Segítő Csoport önkéntesei, az ELTE Rektori Pályázat támogatásával két angliai kortárs segítő csoportot, a London School of Economics Peer Supportot, valamint az Oxford Student Mindsot látogatták meg 2015 szeptemberében. A látogatás célja a csoportok eltér...