Pauliukevičiūtė, Klaudija

Positive image of the profession is very important for all kind of the professionals including psychologists. Though public image of the psychologist is very mixed and inaccurate. Even students who decide to study psychology have some bias related to their profession which influence their studies as though as future career decisions. The aim of the study was to evaluate the image of the psychologist from the students’ perspective in relations with their study field, gender, age, and experience with psychologist in Lithuania. Cross-sectional study design was used in order to evaluate the perception of the psychologist image. 332 students (238 psychology students, 93 – other majors) from Vytautas Magnus University participated in this study. The questionnaire consisted of socio-demographic questions, questions about the experience of meeting with psychologist, knowledge about the psychologist' work and 47 adjectives related to the real and ideal psychologist with 6 items Likert scale (from 1=not true; 6=very true). Factorial analysis of these adjectives revealed 4 factors of the psychologist's image: positive aspects, negative aspects, vitality and external features of the psychologist' image. The results of the study showed that psychology students are more accurate in assessing the minimal qualifications for the profession. They also have more positive image of the real psychologist than other students. Gender and age differences were also found in the perception of the psychologist's image in the group of psychology students: women perceive psychologist as more vital and see him/ her more positively than men; higher course students perceive psychologist as more concerned in his/her own external image than lower course students. The study also showed that image of psychologist is related to the experience of meeting with him/her. The results found in this study could be useful for improving image of the psychologist in Lithuania.

Professional ethics is a science highly related to the personal experience not only to theoretical knowledge of profession. If we want to reach higher quality of teaching students professional ethics we need to take into account the experience they already have. The aim of this study was to explore the patterns of being ethical psychologist of the psychology students. 64 full-time second year psychology students at Vytautas Magnus University participated in this study. In the beginning of the second year of their studies they wrote an essay “What does it mean to be an ethical psychologist for me?”. Content analysis was used as a method of data analysis. The results confirmed the findings of the quantitative studies about the hierarchy of important factors related to the ethical behaviour of psychologist. It was revealed that “confidentiality” is the main feature of being ethical psychologist. “Moral values” including honour, tolerance, care of others, etc. was the second pattern of being ethical professionally. The third theme of the ethical behaviour of psychologist included “serving to others”. The last pattern was concerning the legislation of this profession (“working ethically means working according to the laws”). To sum up, our results showed that experiential patterns of the students reflect 4 general principles of the professional ethics of psychologists (respect, competence, responsibility and integrity).

The aim of the study was to evaluate the relations between impulsivity and alcohol consumption among students. 130 students from Vytautas Magnus University participated in the study. Impulsivity was assessed with BIS-11 Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. Alcohol consumption was assessed with AUDIT – Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. The results showed that impulsivity is significantly correlated with alcohol consumption among students – higher impulsivity is related to the increase of alcohol consumption. However, this relation is significant only in a women’s sample. The relation between impulsivity and alcohol consumption is higher among older students and among students studying in later years of studies.

Childhood is one of the most influential periods of human development for healthy lifestyle and health beliefs formation. This study was intended to assess how II–IV grade schoolchildren’s nutrition characteristics are related to both children and their parents’ health and nutrition beliefs, and parental health related monitoring. A cross-sectional random sampling survey using self-report questionnaires for children and for their parents was carried out in 2010. The questionnaire assessed participants’ self rated health, nutrition, health beliefs and parental health related monitoring. The total sample included 206 schoolchildren and their parents. The results showed that participants eating habits do not match healthy nutrition guidelines. A healthier diet of children is associated with more favorable, more veridical children beliefs about health and nutrition, healthy eating of parents and parental healthy eating modeling. The study confirms both parental health behavior and monitoring influences to children eating habits and health beliefs formation.