Many Ugandans turn to the traditional healing system for help in dealing with the psychosocial st... more Many Ugandans turn to the traditional healing system for help in dealing with the psychosocial stress associated with HIV infection as well as for herbal treatments. Use of traditional healers for this purpose is encouraged by social and cultural beliefs that posit AIDS is a result of witchcraft or a curse from God. It is believed that if a sick person does not obtain treatment and dies, his spirit will cause further disease. Of concern is a tendency for people with AIDS to travel from one part of the country to another, seeking a cure from spiritualists, pure herbalists, and visionaries. Moreover, the intensified emergence of cults in response to the AIDS crisis creates potential for serious exploitation and further spread of the AIDS virus. Not only do these groups drain a family's financial resources, some practice unsafe practices such as intergroup sex or contact with unscreened blood. The estimated 6000-120,000 traditional healers in Uganda have the potential to provide a structure through which AIDS-related psychosocial problems are managed ("psychohealing"). Steps should be taken to understand the conditions that facilitate the emergence of healers purporting to be able to cure AIDS, the type of clients attracted to these services, and the costs and benefits of traditional medicine, with the ultimate goal of involving traditional healers in ongoing AIDS information, education, and counseling programs.
Covid-19 related psychosocial stress, both in Uganda and internationally, is known to be a major ... more Covid-19 related psychosocial stress, both in Uganda and internationally, is known to be a major public health burden at many levels including the family (Gordon, 2020). This study explores the effectiveness of the Family Resilience and Coping Intervention (fRCI) in Kampala city in Uganda. .The study employed a two-group randomized, matched subjects, pre-test post-test control group design, investigator-blind, with a baseline, midline and end line spells that lasted for 3 months. Randomization was by family unit, using a 1: 1 allocation. The experimental group received the fRCI and the control group did not. There were 81 participants in the control and 92 in the intervention group. Instruments included a questionnaire that assessed demographic; coping, strengths and difficulties, depression, generalized anxiety, hope, and general family functioning. Evaluation of fRCI, and session feedback was assessed using forms. Data was analyzed using factor analysis, t-test, panel regression a...
People in economically advantaged nations tend to evaluate their life as more positive overall an... more People in economically advantaged nations tend to evaluate their life as more positive overall and report greater well-being than people in less advantaged nations. But how does positivity manifest in the daily life experiences of individuals around the world? The present study asked 15,244 college students from 62 nations, in 42 languages, to describe a situation they experienced the previous day using the Riverside Situational Q-sort (RSQ). Using expert ratings, the overall positivity of each situation was calculated for both nations and individuals. The positivity of the average situation in each nation was strongly related to the economic development of the nation as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI). For individuals’ daily experiences, the economic status of their nation also predicted the positivity of their experience, even more than their family socioeconomic status. Further analyses revealed the specific characteristics of the average situations for higher HDI nations that make their experiences more positive. Higher HDI was associated with situational experiences involving humor, socializing with others, and the potential to express emotions and fantasies. Lower HDI was associated with an increase in the presence of threats, blame, and hostility, as well as situational experiences consisting of family, religion, and money. Despite the increase in a few negative situational characteristics in lower HDI countries, the overall average experience still ranged from neutral to slightly positive, rather than negative, suggesting that greater HDI may not necessarily increase positive experiences but rather decrease negative experiences. The results illustrate how national economic status influences the lives of individuals even within a single instance of daily life, with large and powerful consequences when accumulated across individuals within each nation.
This study sought to predict economic locus of control from the background characteristics and pe... more This study sought to predict economic locus of control from the background characteristics and personal dispositions of college students. Participants were a convenience sample of 236 Ugandan university students (males = 43.6%, females = 56.4%, Mean age = 23.80 years, SD = 4.29, lower SES =14.8%). They completed an economic locus of control that measures internal and chance/external aspects of own economic outcomes. They also completed an optimism scale, general locus of control measure and a causal attributions measure. Data was analyzed using stepwise multiple regression to predict economic locus of control from background characteristics and personal dispositions (i.e., optimism, general locus of control, causality beliefs). Internal economic locus of control was reliably predicted by being older, from middle SES, and high on generalised locus of control. Being female and having an internal locus negatively predicted belief in powerful others to influence own economic outcomes.
High economic inequality has been identified as a key factor in fuelling political polarization, ... more High economic inequality has been identified as a key factor in fuelling political polarization, but the underlying psychological mechanisms behind this phenomenon are not well understood. We propose that economic inequality threatens people's experience of social order and control, leading them to adopt moralistic mindsets – yet this mindset may sow divisions in society. Using data from social media, a multinational survey across 41 regions around the world, and an experimental approach, our work shows that economic inequality is associated with the use of moral language online, harsher moral judgments, and a desire for clearer social and moral rules in society. Together these findings demonstrate that economic inequality is linked to the tendency to see the world through a moral lens. Understanding how societal structures impact our moral perspectives may help us bridge the growing divisions between people and foster a more united society.
Purpose: The study aimed at assessing barriers in accessing Community-Based Trauma- Focused Cogni... more Purpose: The study aimed at assessing barriers in accessing Community-Based Trauma- Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) management in post-conflict Acholi sub-region with interest in providing solutions to those barriers. Methodology: The study adopted a survey approach which was qualitative. This was done through interviews. This was supplemented by the pragmatic paradigm that concerned assessing effectiveness of community-based TF-CBT. The research design used to assess barriers and facilitators of TF-CBT was cross sectional. The use of cross-sectional survey design involved the elements of comparative, exploratory and descriptive approaches. Sample selection of participants involved organizational staff comprising of, social workers, clinical psychologists, Village Health Team (VHTs). Beneficiaries who included 120 men and 299 women. The 419 beneficiaries were interrogated using a questionnaire, 36 participants for Focused Group...
People cooperate every day in ways that range from largescale contributions that mitigate climate... more People cooperate every day in ways that range from largescale contributions that mitigate climate change to simple actions such as leaving another individual with choice – known as social mindfulness. It is not yet clear whether and how these complex and more simple forms of cooperation relate. Prior work has found that countries with individuals who made more socially mindful choices were linked to a higher country environmental performance – a proxy for complex cooperation. Here we replicated this initial finding in 41 samples around the world, demonstrating the robustness of the association between social mindfulness and environmental performance, and substantially built on it to show this relationship extended to a wide range of complex cooperative indices, tied closely to many current societal issues. We found that greater social mindfulness expressed by an individual was related to living in countries with more social capital, more community participation and reduced prejudice...
Sociétés d'Afrique & SIDA : newsletter of the Sociétés d'Afrique & SIDA Network, 1996
Many Ugandans turn to the traditional healing system for help in dealing with the psychosocial st... more Many Ugandans turn to the traditional healing system for help in dealing with the psychosocial stress associated with HIV infection as well as for herbal treatments. Use of traditional healers for this purpose is encouraged by social and cultural beliefs that posit AIDS is a result of witchcraft or a curse from God. It is believed that if a sick person does not obtain treatment and dies, his spirit will cause further disease. Of concern is a tendency for people with AIDS to travel from one part of the country to another, seeking a cure from spiritualists, pure herbalists, and visionaries. Moreover, the intensified emergence of cults in response to the AIDS crisis creates potential for serious exploitation and further spread of the AIDS virus. Not only do these groups drain a family's financial resources, some practice unsafe practices such as intergroup sex or contact with unscreened blood. The estimated 6000-120,000 traditional healers in Uganda have the potential to provide a structure through which AIDS-related psychosocial problems are managed ("psychohealing"). Steps should be taken to understand the conditions that facilitate the emergence of healers purporting to be able to cure AIDS, the type of clients attracted to these services, and the costs and benefits of traditional medicine, with the ultimate goal of involving traditional healers in ongoing AIDS information, education, and counseling programs.
Happiness is a valuable experience, and societies want their citizens to be happy. Although this ... more Happiness is a valuable experience, and societies want their citizens to be happy. Although this societal commitment seems laudable, overly emphasizing positivity (versus negativity) may create an unattainable emotion norm that ironically compromises individual well-being. In this multi-national study (40 countries; 7443 participants), we investigate how societal pressure to be happy and not sad predicts emotional, cognitive and clinical indicators of well-being around the world, and examine how these relations differ as a function of countries’ national happiness levels (collected from the World Happiness Report). Although detrimental well-being associations manifest for an average country, the strength of these relations varies across countries. People’s felt societal pressure to be happy and not sad is particularly linked to poor well-being in countries with a higher World Happiness Index. Although the cross-sectional nature of our work prohibits causal conclusions, our findings ...
Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance
PurposeThe purpose of the study is to establish the relationship between age, job involvement, jo... more PurposeThe purpose of the study is to establish the relationship between age, job involvement, job satisfaction and job performance of sub-county chiefs in the Ugandan local government.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional survey design was used to obtain a total sample of 320 sub-county chiefs who were selected to participate in the study using multi-stage stratified random sampling. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data that were entered into the computer using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, version 23 (IBM SPSS-AMOS). Path analysis results were used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results indicated significant positive relationships between: age and job involvement, job involvement and job satisfaction, and job involvement and job performance. Non-significant relationships were between age and job satisfaction, age and job performance, and job satisfaction and job performance. A reconstructed model was presented.Practical implicationsE...
What are the things that we think matter morally, and how do societal factors influence this? To ... more What are the things that we think matter morally, and how do societal factors influence this? To date, research has explored several individual-level and historical factors that influence the size of our ‘moral circles’. There has, however, been less attention focused on which societal factors play a role. We present the first multi-national exploration of moral expansiveness – that is the size of people’s moral circles across countries. We found low generalized trust, greater perceptions of a breakdown in the social fabric of society, and greater perceived economic inequality were associated with smaller moral circles. Generalized trust also helped explain the effects of perceived inequality on lower levels of moral inclusiveness. Other inequality indicators (i.e., Gini coefficients) were, however, unrelated to moral expansiveness. These findings suggest societal factors, especially those associated with generalized trust, may influence the size of our moral circles.
Many Ugandans turn to the traditional healing system for help in dealing with the psychosocial st... more Many Ugandans turn to the traditional healing system for help in dealing with the psychosocial stress associated with HIV infection as well as for herbal treatments. Use of traditional healers for this purpose is encouraged by social and cultural beliefs that posit AIDS is a result of witchcraft or a curse from God. It is believed that if a sick person does not obtain treatment and dies, his spirit will cause further disease. Of concern is a tendency for people with AIDS to travel from one part of the country to another, seeking a cure from spiritualists, pure herbalists, and visionaries. Moreover, the intensified emergence of cults in response to the AIDS crisis creates potential for serious exploitation and further spread of the AIDS virus. Not only do these groups drain a family's financial resources, some practice unsafe practices such as intergroup sex or contact with unscreened blood. The estimated 6000-120,000 traditional healers in Uganda have the potential to provide a structure through which AIDS-related psychosocial problems are managed ("psychohealing"). Steps should be taken to understand the conditions that facilitate the emergence of healers purporting to be able to cure AIDS, the type of clients attracted to these services, and the costs and benefits of traditional medicine, with the ultimate goal of involving traditional healers in ongoing AIDS information, education, and counseling programs.
Covid-19 related psychosocial stress, both in Uganda and internationally, is known to be a major ... more Covid-19 related psychosocial stress, both in Uganda and internationally, is known to be a major public health burden at many levels including the family (Gordon, 2020). This study explores the effectiveness of the Family Resilience and Coping Intervention (fRCI) in Kampala city in Uganda. .The study employed a two-group randomized, matched subjects, pre-test post-test control group design, investigator-blind, with a baseline, midline and end line spells that lasted for 3 months. Randomization was by family unit, using a 1: 1 allocation. The experimental group received the fRCI and the control group did not. There were 81 participants in the control and 92 in the intervention group. Instruments included a questionnaire that assessed demographic; coping, strengths and difficulties, depression, generalized anxiety, hope, and general family functioning. Evaluation of fRCI, and session feedback was assessed using forms. Data was analyzed using factor analysis, t-test, panel regression a...
People in economically advantaged nations tend to evaluate their life as more positive overall an... more People in economically advantaged nations tend to evaluate their life as more positive overall and report greater well-being than people in less advantaged nations. But how does positivity manifest in the daily life experiences of individuals around the world? The present study asked 15,244 college students from 62 nations, in 42 languages, to describe a situation they experienced the previous day using the Riverside Situational Q-sort (RSQ). Using expert ratings, the overall positivity of each situation was calculated for both nations and individuals. The positivity of the average situation in each nation was strongly related to the economic development of the nation as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI). For individuals’ daily experiences, the economic status of their nation also predicted the positivity of their experience, even more than their family socioeconomic status. Further analyses revealed the specific characteristics of the average situations for higher HDI nations that make their experiences more positive. Higher HDI was associated with situational experiences involving humor, socializing with others, and the potential to express emotions and fantasies. Lower HDI was associated with an increase in the presence of threats, blame, and hostility, as well as situational experiences consisting of family, religion, and money. Despite the increase in a few negative situational characteristics in lower HDI countries, the overall average experience still ranged from neutral to slightly positive, rather than negative, suggesting that greater HDI may not necessarily increase positive experiences but rather decrease negative experiences. The results illustrate how national economic status influences the lives of individuals even within a single instance of daily life, with large and powerful consequences when accumulated across individuals within each nation.
This study sought to predict economic locus of control from the background characteristics and pe... more This study sought to predict economic locus of control from the background characteristics and personal dispositions of college students. Participants were a convenience sample of 236 Ugandan university students (males = 43.6%, females = 56.4%, Mean age = 23.80 years, SD = 4.29, lower SES =14.8%). They completed an economic locus of control that measures internal and chance/external aspects of own economic outcomes. They also completed an optimism scale, general locus of control measure and a causal attributions measure. Data was analyzed using stepwise multiple regression to predict economic locus of control from background characteristics and personal dispositions (i.e., optimism, general locus of control, causality beliefs). Internal economic locus of control was reliably predicted by being older, from middle SES, and high on generalised locus of control. Being female and having an internal locus negatively predicted belief in powerful others to influence own economic outcomes.
High economic inequality has been identified as a key factor in fuelling political polarization, ... more High economic inequality has been identified as a key factor in fuelling political polarization, but the underlying psychological mechanisms behind this phenomenon are not well understood. We propose that economic inequality threatens people's experience of social order and control, leading them to adopt moralistic mindsets – yet this mindset may sow divisions in society. Using data from social media, a multinational survey across 41 regions around the world, and an experimental approach, our work shows that economic inequality is associated with the use of moral language online, harsher moral judgments, and a desire for clearer social and moral rules in society. Together these findings demonstrate that economic inequality is linked to the tendency to see the world through a moral lens. Understanding how societal structures impact our moral perspectives may help us bridge the growing divisions between people and foster a more united society.
Purpose: The study aimed at assessing barriers in accessing Community-Based Trauma- Focused Cogni... more Purpose: The study aimed at assessing barriers in accessing Community-Based Trauma- Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) management in post-conflict Acholi sub-region with interest in providing solutions to those barriers. Methodology: The study adopted a survey approach which was qualitative. This was done through interviews. This was supplemented by the pragmatic paradigm that concerned assessing effectiveness of community-based TF-CBT. The research design used to assess barriers and facilitators of TF-CBT was cross sectional. The use of cross-sectional survey design involved the elements of comparative, exploratory and descriptive approaches. Sample selection of participants involved organizational staff comprising of, social workers, clinical psychologists, Village Health Team (VHTs). Beneficiaries who included 120 men and 299 women. The 419 beneficiaries were interrogated using a questionnaire, 36 participants for Focused Group...
People cooperate every day in ways that range from largescale contributions that mitigate climate... more People cooperate every day in ways that range from largescale contributions that mitigate climate change to simple actions such as leaving another individual with choice – known as social mindfulness. It is not yet clear whether and how these complex and more simple forms of cooperation relate. Prior work has found that countries with individuals who made more socially mindful choices were linked to a higher country environmental performance – a proxy for complex cooperation. Here we replicated this initial finding in 41 samples around the world, demonstrating the robustness of the association between social mindfulness and environmental performance, and substantially built on it to show this relationship extended to a wide range of complex cooperative indices, tied closely to many current societal issues. We found that greater social mindfulness expressed by an individual was related to living in countries with more social capital, more community participation and reduced prejudice...
Sociétés d'Afrique & SIDA : newsletter of the Sociétés d'Afrique & SIDA Network, 1996
Many Ugandans turn to the traditional healing system for help in dealing with the psychosocial st... more Many Ugandans turn to the traditional healing system for help in dealing with the psychosocial stress associated with HIV infection as well as for herbal treatments. Use of traditional healers for this purpose is encouraged by social and cultural beliefs that posit AIDS is a result of witchcraft or a curse from God. It is believed that if a sick person does not obtain treatment and dies, his spirit will cause further disease. Of concern is a tendency for people with AIDS to travel from one part of the country to another, seeking a cure from spiritualists, pure herbalists, and visionaries. Moreover, the intensified emergence of cults in response to the AIDS crisis creates potential for serious exploitation and further spread of the AIDS virus. Not only do these groups drain a family's financial resources, some practice unsafe practices such as intergroup sex or contact with unscreened blood. The estimated 6000-120,000 traditional healers in Uganda have the potential to provide a structure through which AIDS-related psychosocial problems are managed ("psychohealing"). Steps should be taken to understand the conditions that facilitate the emergence of healers purporting to be able to cure AIDS, the type of clients attracted to these services, and the costs and benefits of traditional medicine, with the ultimate goal of involving traditional healers in ongoing AIDS information, education, and counseling programs.
Happiness is a valuable experience, and societies want their citizens to be happy. Although this ... more Happiness is a valuable experience, and societies want their citizens to be happy. Although this societal commitment seems laudable, overly emphasizing positivity (versus negativity) may create an unattainable emotion norm that ironically compromises individual well-being. In this multi-national study (40 countries; 7443 participants), we investigate how societal pressure to be happy and not sad predicts emotional, cognitive and clinical indicators of well-being around the world, and examine how these relations differ as a function of countries’ national happiness levels (collected from the World Happiness Report). Although detrimental well-being associations manifest for an average country, the strength of these relations varies across countries. People’s felt societal pressure to be happy and not sad is particularly linked to poor well-being in countries with a higher World Happiness Index. Although the cross-sectional nature of our work prohibits causal conclusions, our findings ...
Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance
PurposeThe purpose of the study is to establish the relationship between age, job involvement, jo... more PurposeThe purpose of the study is to establish the relationship between age, job involvement, job satisfaction and job performance of sub-county chiefs in the Ugandan local government.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional survey design was used to obtain a total sample of 320 sub-county chiefs who were selected to participate in the study using multi-stage stratified random sampling. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data that were entered into the computer using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, version 23 (IBM SPSS-AMOS). Path analysis results were used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results indicated significant positive relationships between: age and job involvement, job involvement and job satisfaction, and job involvement and job performance. Non-significant relationships were between age and job satisfaction, age and job performance, and job satisfaction and job performance. A reconstructed model was presented.Practical implicationsE...
What are the things that we think matter morally, and how do societal factors influence this? To ... more What are the things that we think matter morally, and how do societal factors influence this? To date, research has explored several individual-level and historical factors that influence the size of our ‘moral circles’. There has, however, been less attention focused on which societal factors play a role. We present the first multi-national exploration of moral expansiveness – that is the size of people’s moral circles across countries. We found low generalized trust, greater perceptions of a breakdown in the social fabric of society, and greater perceived economic inequality were associated with smaller moral circles. Generalized trust also helped explain the effects of perceived inequality on lower levels of moral inclusiveness. Other inequality indicators (i.e., Gini coefficients) were, however, unrelated to moral expansiveness. These findings suggest societal factors, especially those associated with generalized trust, may influence the size of our moral circles.
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Papers by Peter Baguma