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Life in Israel is very stressful. Since its establishment in 1948 Israel has gone through five major wars, and even during times of peace civilians live with the constant threat of terrorist activity. Despite this and other stresses, Israelis report consistently lower levels of burnout than Americans. This paper proposes an existential perspective in an attempt to explain this curious phenomenon. According to the existential perspective, the root cause of burnout lies in people's need to believe that their lives are meaningful. It is suggested that Israelis are less burned out, not despite, but because of the constant reminders to the threat to their existence. The low levels of Israeli burnout are demonstrated using a cross-cultural Israeli-American comparison in three occupational groups: teachers, nurses, and managers. In addition, interviews with a teacher a nurse, and a manager who worked in both countries are presented. These data provide tentative support for the existential perspective and point to the importance of a cross-cultural study of burnout.

Evolutionary theory views gender differences in romantic attraction as large, biologically based, and caused by evolutionary forces. The greatest differences lie in men's attraction to appearance and women's attraction to status. Social construction theory, on the other hand, views gender differences in attraction as minor and as being caused primarily by social forces such as norms and stereotypes. Ninety-three American and 89 Israeli young men and women were interviewed concerning their most significant intimate relationship, in order to test the contradictory predictions of these two theories. An analysis of the interviews provides partial support for both theories: As predicted by evolutionary theory, men were more attracted by appearance. Contrary to its prediction, however, there was no gender difference in status as a cause of attraction. Furthermore, gender differences were found where evolutionary theory does not predict them and not found where expected. As predicted by social construction theory, culture had an effect on attraction. These findings suggest a need for an integrated theory of romantic attraction that combines aspects of both theories.

This comprehensive handbook presents an extensive overview of empirical and conceptual developments in the study of high-tech entrepreneurs from an interdisciplinary and multinational perspective

The importance of work and love for healthy functioning is well documented. This article addresses the relationship between them. The authors argue, based on a psychoanalytic‐existential perspective, that people's choice of work and love is related to similar unresolved childhood issues and that career burnout and couple burnout are related to failure in the existential quest aimed at solving these issues. The existence of a relationship between career burnout and couple burnout is demonstrated by several clinical examples and the results of an exploratory cross‐cultural study involving Israeli, Spanish, Portuguese, American, British, and Finnish students. Implications for career and couple counseling are drawn.

The only consistent gender difference in management style reported in the literature is the more democratic style of women. Democratic leadership is a cornerstone of the feminist approach. The current exploratory study attempted to differentiate between the effect of feminist self-definition
and gender in explaining differences in democratic attitudes of managers. Israeli male (43) and female (28) managers were questioned about their managerial attitudes and whether they are feminist or non-feminist. Results suggest that a surprisingly high number of both male and female managers
defined themselves as feminist. Furthermore, feminist selfdefinition was found to explain several democratic managerial attitudes better than gender.

A large number of studies have been published in recent years concerning social support, and a large number of studies have been published on burnout. Very few studies, however, have addressed the relationship between the two—and those that did reported conflicting results. The current exploratory study examines the different functions of social support (rather than the people who provide them) and their relationship to burnout among Israeli, Israeli Arab, Hungarian, and North American social science students (to assure subject homogeneity). Respondents were asked to rate the importance of six support functions and to indicate the extent to which they are available to them in their lives. Their responses were correlated with their burnout scores. Results showed both universal and culture-specific effects. While respondents in all four countries viewed the six support functions as very important, burnout was correlated more with the availability of support than with its importance. Different functions had different importance and availability ratings and different correlations with burnout in the four countries. The results demonstrate the importance of a cross-cultural perspective to the study of social support and burnout.

We use existential theory as a framework to explore the levels of and relationship between job and couple burnout reported by dual-earner couples in the "sandwich generation" (i.e., couples caring both for children and aging parents) in a sample of such couples in Israel and the United States. This comparison enables an examination of the influence of culture (which is rarely addressed in burnout research) and gender (a topic fraught with conflicting results) on both job and couple burnout in this growing yet understudied group of workers who are reaching middle age and starting to face existential issues as part of their own life cycle. Results revealed significant differences in burnout type (job burnout higher than couple burnout); gender (wives more burned out than husbands); and country (Americans more burned out than Israelis). Job related stressors and rewards as well as parent care stressors predicted job burnout, and marital stressors and rewards predicted couple burnout. In addition, there was evidence for both crossover and spillover.