This issue of Nordic Psychology presents a selection of significant and captivating articles to be savored during the beautiful Nordic spring. The articles delve into crucial themes such as health and working hours, experiences of sexual assault survivors, interpersonal psychological skills, psychological assumptions, the Sussex-Oxford Compassion Scales, Mind and Body relationship, autobiographical memory, and abstract thinking in relation to physical pain.
In the first article of this issue, "Health-related Effects of an Intervention Involving Reduced Working Hours among Women Employed in Municipal Eldercare," Lindfors and Schwarz present a longitudinal study examining the health-related effects of reducing daily working hours from ≥7 to 6 h. Results from repeated measures ANOVAs showed significant interaction effects for diastolic blood pressure and HbA1c, primarily related to changes among referents. However, no other significant group differences were found. The study concludes that none of the hypothesized health-promoting effects of reduced working hours were observed. In the second article, "Giving Voice: Experiences and Needs of Sexual Assault Survivors Facing Multiple Adversities," Bach, Hansen, Ahrens, and Hansen explore the formal help-seeking experiences and needs of survivors facing various adversities apart from sexual assault. The study highlights the deeply personal and contextual nature of the assault experience and its aftermath, emphasizing the necessity of a person-centered approach to address survivors’ unique needs. The third article, "The Development of Facilitative Interpersonal Skills during 5-year Psychology Training Programs: A Cross-sectional Study," by Salim, Davidsson, Carlsson, and Norberg, investigates the association between Facilitative Interpersonal Skills (FIS) and progression in a 5-year psychologist program. The findings suggest that students’ progression on the program significantly predicts FIS, along with higher motivation for clinical work and lower test anxiety. In the fourth article, "Psychological Assumptions Underlying Credibility Assessments in Finnish Asylum Determinations," Skrifvars, Sui, Antfolk, Veldhuizen and Korkman explore the psychological assumptions guiding credibility assessments in Finnish asylum procedures. The study identifies gaps between these assumptions and established psychological science, emphasizing the need for training programs for asylum officials to incorporate relevant findings from psychology. The fifth article, "Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties of a Swedish Version of the Sussex-Oxford Compassion Scales (SOCS)," by Sarling, Sundin, Åhs, Gu and Jansson validates Swedish translations of SOCS-O and SOCS-S, demonstrating its reliability and validity for indexing compassion in general adult populations in Sweden and Finland. In the sixth article, "The Role of Mind-Body Bridging-Based University Psychology Course for Students’ Well-being," Siira, Petäjäniemi, Lutovac and Kaasila examine the impact of a psychology course based on mind-body bridging (MBB) on university students’ well-being. The study highlights the significant positive effects of MBB on students’ present-focused awareness and metacognitive strategies, suggesting its potential usefulness in higher education contexts. The seventh article, "Individual Differences in Autobiographical Memory: A Danish Version of the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART)," by Gehrt, Nielsen, and Berntsen, provides a Danish translation of ART and establishes correlations between Danish ART and characteristics of randomly sampled memories, supporting the validity of the translation as a trait-like measure of autobiographical memory. Lastly, in the eighth article, "Thinking Abstractly about One’s Physical Pain: Can Abstraction Reduce Sensitivity to Painful Stimuli?" Gunnarsson and Agerström investigate whether abstract thinking reduces sensitivity to painful stimuli. The study, utilizing the cold pressor method, found no evidence to support the hypothesis that abstract thinking reduces pain sensitivity.
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