Crime has become a major problem in public opinion in recent years. It is therefore of prime importance to know the extent of the prevalence and incidence of delinquency in Switzerland, and more specifically delinquency concerning aggravated behaviour (in particular sexual violence and serious bodily harm to persons). The descriptive study of the commission of this delinquency inevitably leads us to focus on the two other aspects of this phenomenon: victimization and acceptance of violence. The main question is: What are the frequencies of violent behaviour and experiences in Switzerland and what are the relationships between personal experiences of victimisation and the commission of acts of physical and sexual violence on the other hand among men? Other factors concerning the respondent's personality, life and immediate social environment are also assessed. The more subtle forms of psychological violence are not taken into consideration.
Crime has become a major problem in public opinion in recent years. It is therefore of prime importance to know the extent of the prevalence and incidence of delinquency in Switzerland, and more specifically delinquency concerning aggravated behaviour (in particular sexual violence and serious bodily harm to persons). The descriptive study of the commission of this delinquency inevitably leads us to focus on the two other aspects of this phenomenon: victimization and acceptance of violence. The main question is: What are the frequencies of violent behaviour and experiences in Switzerland and what are the relationships between personal experiences of victimisation and the commission of acts of physical and sexual violence on the other hand among men? Other factors concerning the respondent's personality, life and immediate social environment are also assessed. The more subtle forms of psychological violence are not taken into consideration.
Knowledge in psychology is based disproportionately on evidence from western, industrialized samples, non-representative groups in terms of global population. Models built only on such samples may be limited in generalizability. The current project seeks to improve this imbalance in the domain of psychological disorders. Specifically, we aimed to validate an inventory of disorder symptoms for use in two African languages, and provide baseline data on their prevalence and pattern of associations in Namibia including a comparative assessment of among three language groups and with data from the United States. This allows us to build on current knowledge and generate new hypotheses about more universal versus more culturally specific aspects of disorder symptoms. Method: Surveys measuring psychological disorder symptoms, personality traits, well-being, physical health, religiosity, and multiple demographic indicators were collected by oral interview or written survey in three languages. The analytic sample includes 645 Khoekhoegowab-speakers from throughout Namibia, 678 Oshiwambo-speakers from far-northern Namibia, and 589 English-speakers from Windhoek and surrounding areas (Age 18 to 70; M = 33.28; SD = 11.13; 55% female).
The study will also explore how domains of routine mental illness relate to personality characteristics, including personality dimensions defined by the earlier lexical study of personality in Khoekhoegowab. A follow up study will include qualitative interviews to explore local conceptions of serious mental illness, how these are seen to relate to routine (depression, anxiety, substance abuse) mental illness, and the cultural meaning of these domains.
Ultimately this mixed-methods two-part study is intended to (1) establish a better understanding of mental disorder symptoms in Namibia, in order to better inform local psychologists and to provide a solid basis for future work improving mental health services in the country; and (2) to provide evidence to better distinguish between universal versus culturally specific rates and patterns of mental health symptoms.
Personality psychology relies heavily on evidence from North America and Europe. Lexical studies, based on the rationale that the most important psychological distinctions between people will be encoded in the natural languages, can provide input from underrepresented contexts by defining locally-relevant personality concepts and their structure. We report the results of a psycholexical study in Khoekhoegowab, the most widely spoken of southern Africa's (non-Bantu) click languages. It includes the largest sample of any lexical study conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa, is the first anywhere to include qualitative interviews to systematically assess the interpretability of terms, and is one of few to rely on a more representative community sample of adults rather than students. Refinement of the survey included frequency-of-use ratings by native speakers from throughout Namibia and input on relevance to personality by those with a psychology degree. The survey was administered by interview to 622 participants by a team of 15 schoolteachers of Khoekhoegowab. The 11 dimensions of the optimal local model were labelled: Intemperance, Prosocial Diligence, Intrusive Gossip, Good Nature, Bad Temper, Predatory Aggression, Haughty Self-Respect, Vanity/Egotism, and Fear versus Courage. A Big One model of evaluation was strongly replicated. Moderate replication was found for the Big Two, Pan-Cultural Three, and a hypothesized pan-African model based on prior lexical results in two languages. Replication criteria were not achieved for the Big Five, Big Six, or South African Personality Inventory models. What results suggest about the local cultural context and about culturally specific aspects of the imported models are discussed.
Personality psychology relies heavily on evidence from North America and Europe. Lexical studies, based on the rationale that the most important psychological distinctions between people will be encoded in the natural languages, can provide input from underrepresented contexts by defining locally-relevant personality concepts and their structure. We report the results of a psycholexical study in Khoekhoegowab, the most widely spoken of southern Africa's (non-Bantu) click languages. It includes the largest sample of any lexical study conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa, is the first anywhere to include qualitative interviews to systematically assess the interpretability of terms, and is one of few to rely on a more representative community sample of adults rather than students. Refinement of the survey included frequency-of-use ratings by native speakers from throughout Namibia and input on relevance to personality by those with a psychology degree. The survey was administered by interview to 622 participants by a team of 15 schoolteachers of Khoekhoegowab. The 11 dimensions of the optimal local model were labelled: Intemperance, Prosocial Diligence, Intrusive Gossip, Good Nature, Bad Temper, Predatory Aggression, Haughty Self-Respect, Vanity/Egotism, and Fear versus Courage. A Big One model of evaluation was strongly replicated. Moderate replication was found for the Big Two, Pan-Cultural Three, and a hypothesized pan-African model based on prior lexical results in two languages. Replication criteria were not achieved for the Big Five, Big Six, or South African Personality Inventory models. What results suggest about the local cultural context and about culturally specific aspects of the imported models are discussed.
The period from the outbreak of the first Covid19 diseases in China to the epidemic in Italy and currently also the drastically increasing number of reports of infected people in Switzerland lasted only 8 weeks. As a consequence, public life was drastically reduced, schools were closed and employees were recommended or ordered to work in their home office. One basis for these preventive measures was a high degree of flexibility of each individual and alternative forms of work and also alternate forms of care in society. Nevertheless, there are institutions that are reaching their limits and are neither able to maintain physical distance nor couldn't work without their employees. These are institutions with a governmental mandate, whose clients are in a total system, the coercive context in mandated settings. In particular, these are institutions of the prison system, therapy facilities, as well as care facilities for children and young people. Here, on the one hand, the possibilities of living in a distance are drastically restricted, the employees must already be on site due to the security aspect, and the possibilities for information and communication are also classically handled restrictively. In addition, these are per se vulnerable groups because of infectious diseases such as hepatitis and HIV occur 9 times more frequently than in the overall population (Getaz 2019). In order to stop the epidemic, actually work opportunities have to be stopped for the inmates/clients, visits are forbidden and educational and leisure activities are nearly restricted. Furthermore, in particular, holidays and releases are suspended and pandemic containment plans are applied if necessary. However, it is not clear what these plans are (Amt für Justizvollzug 2020). Therapy talks and preparations for release are also restricted, which hinders the new admission of new persons due to capacity reasons. Nevertheless, the institutions of the justice system and of care in the area of children and young people have a duty of care and the statutory mandate to adapt life in a coercive context to the conditions in freedom, including the health care. (StGB Art. 75). The questions that arise are as follows: • How can prevention measures be implemented in closed coercive contexts? • How can health care be guaranteed with regard to Covid19 in coercive contexts? and: Which particular challenges arise from the specific clients who are described as a high risk group of persons with pre-ilnesses and psychological problems? • How is the right to information and the right to contact clients/residents implemented during the phase of exclusion and additional preventive restrictions? In order to answer these questions, several institutions of mandatory context, will be examined in more detail by means of qualitative interviews with employees from: prisons, youth housing and therapy facilities as well as residential and work externalities. In addition, leaders of the Concordats and the offices of correctional services will be included. The aim of the study is to find out which strategies and measures have proven to be helpful in dealing with pandemics and crisis situations, so they can be managed better in the future and the repertoire of action can be expanded by identifying problem areas from a scientific perspective across institutions and cantons in order to recommend best practice. The questions relate to three sub-areas of the call for proposals: - Management of Covid19 Desease – (in coercive contexts) - Infection prevention, including protection of the employees (and the clients) - Impact of the (social) media communication
