Successful functioning of an organization, especially agricultural one, implies the necessity for a properly organized system of employee health and safety. The system will function properly only when employees perceive organizational safety processes and procedures as a part of their behavior at work. The purpose of this study with reference to scientific literature and empirical research to determine the main factors that predict higher safety climate in organization. 961 employees from a large Lithuanian company of agricultural industry participated in the survey. The study was conducted using Sexton’s Safety Climate Questionnaire and two scales from Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire. The analysis of data via Structural Equation Modeling confirmed the theoretical model of psychosocial safety climate antecedents. The findings of the study showed that employee trust in management had higher predictive value as compared to workplace commitment, and that the leader’s role in promoting safety in an organization is more important than employee attitudes or declared safety-related orders and procedures in the organization.

Life satisfaction has been a major goal of both the individual and society since ancient times. Nevertheless, relatively little is known about which personal characteristics can affect our satisfaction with life. It may be assumed that higher levels of education, being related to better health, may also be a factor increasing one’s cognitive element of well-being i.e., life satisfaction. It is also known that satisfaction with one’s life is also related to positive attitudes towards other people. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether education is directly related to satisfaction with life or via certain attitudes. The purpose of the study is to analyze links between the length of education and satisfaction with life with regard to positive attitudes toward others using a representative sample. Methods and data. Expert-generated single-item questions were used to measure the level of satisfaction with life and attitudes towards other people. The study is based on the data (N=1127) of the Lithuanian National Science Programme “Welfare society”. Respondents were between 18 and 97 years of age (M=48). For statistical analysis correlation and simple mediation models were used. Results. The analysis of the data showed that higher levels of life satisfaction were predicted by years of completed education directly, and indirectly – through more positive attitudes towards others, while controlling for age, gender, level of income. Discussion. The study confirms previous findings that education is related to life satisfaction through more positive attitudes towards others and suggests that education impacts on life satisfaction not only as a promoter of higher income. Conclusion. Longer duration of studying (learning) is related to higher satisfaction with life and more positive attitudes towards others independently of gender, age and income.

The study was oriented to identify the main risk and safety factors for the professional burnout among university teachers in Lithuania. 257 participants filled up a self-administered questionnaire in a cross-sectional survey. 42.8 percent of university teachers in Lithuania indicated that are often or permanently suffering from professional burnout. Quantitative and emotional demands alongside with perceived social support from a supervisor acted as risk factors, and personal resources and social support from colleagues – assafety factors for the professional burnout.

Introduction. In most research studies, health is analysed from the unidimensional perspective, e.g. medical studies are usually based on the biomedical model, which posits that health is an absence of illness, and that illness is caused by abnormality within the body. In this model, mental phenomena are not important, an individual has no or little responsibility on one’s health, and the treatment of a disease in most cases is passive (Wade, Halligan, 2004). The WHO (1948) definition of health suggests that health is not only the absence of illness, but also a good subjective and social state, i.e. health is a multidimensional, biopsychosocial construct. Therefore, alongside the analysis of the biological aspects of health, there is also a need to study the relationship between psychosocial aspects (resources) of health and health behaviour. The aim of the study is to explore the links between different emotional (feelings of depression, sadness, anxiety, happiness), cognitive (beliefs that other people are helpful, supportive, trustful) and social (religiousness, meeting with friends, participation in social activities, possibilities to discuss private, intimate questions) health resources and their relation to health behaviour (eating fruits, vegetables, smoking status, number of cigarettes, alcohol use frequency, amount of alcohol consumed on workdays and weekends, physical activity) in a representative sample of Lithuanian males and females. Research methods and participants. Single-item questions generated by experts from the European Social Survey round 7 were used to assess the emotional, cognitive and social health resources and health behaviour. The research sample (n=1865) was drawn from the general population in Lithuania (40.2 percent of males and 59.8 percent of females). The mean age of participants was 49.59 (SD=18.29). The youngest participant was 15 years old and the oldest one was 92. Participants were interviewed in 2014. [...]

Background and purpose. Successful aging has been one of the most popular concepts in the gerontological literature over the last few years. At present, there is no universally accepted definition of what the term “successful aging” means, and which factors are associated with it. This study aimed to assess the role of psychological and social factors in self-rated successful aging in older adults. Methods. 396 older adults participated in this study. The mean age of the respondents was 67,1 ± 5,8 (age range 60–84). Data was collected using Self-Rated Successful Aging Scale (Gwee et al., 2014); Rapid Assessment of Physical Activity (Topolski et al., 2006); Scale of Activity and Psychological Well-Being in Older People (Warr et al., 2004); A Short Scale for Measuring Social Support in the Elderly (Kempen, Eijk, 1995); Geriatric Spiritual Well-Being Scale (Dunn, 2008); The Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, Griffin, 1985); Subjective Age Identity Scale (Hubley, 2014). Results. Older adults characterized as more subjective successful agers had a significantly higher level of social and physical activity, social support, life satisfaction, happiness, spirituality, satisfaction with the living standards, younger subjective age identity and better self-rated health. Better self-rated health, younger subjective age identity, higher level of life satisfaction, intellectual social activity and learning, better subjective eating habits, higher number of grandchildren and having a job were the best independent predictive factors of self-rated successful aging. Conclusions. The best predictive factors (social) of self-rated successful aging were higher level of intellectual social activity and learning, having a job and higher number of grandchildren; the best predictive factors (psychological) of self-rated successful aging were higher level of life satisfaction, younger subjective age identity, better self-rated health and eating habits.

Background. The aim of the study was to assess the effectiveness of biofeed- back-assisted relaxation as well as progressive muscle relaxation in reducing per- ceived stress with regard to personality features. Method. The subjects of the study were 177 university students, 143 of which participated in the course of six sessions. The subjects participated either in four progressive muscle relaxation sessions (n=47) or four biofeedback-assisted relaxation sessions (n=48). Subjects in the comparison group participated only in the 1st and the 6th sessions without relaxation training. Biofeedback-assisted relaxation was conducted using NeXus – 10 device (The Neth- erlands). Results and conclusions. Both relaxation methods proved to be effective in reducing perceived stress. Changes in perceived stress were related to the type of relaxation, personality characteristics, and their intensity.