NewsFresh studiesFor parents and teachers

What Concerns Ukrainian Refugees in the Czech Republic? From an Acute Crisis to Everyday Worries

Since February 2022, millions of people have fled Ukraine and sought refuge in European Union countries. But this wasn’t just a matter of physical relocation – refugees also had to cope with uncertainty regarding housing, work, health care, and how they would be received in their new country. For many, social media became a place where they shared information, sought support, and collectively made sense of what they were going through. Less is known, however, about how these online conversations are changing as the refugee situation ceases to be an acute crisis and becomes a more long-term reality – and whether this transformation varies from country to country. This is precisely the focus of a new study, to which INPSY member Anna Ševčíková contributed.

NewsFresh studies

A new tool for tracking clients' responses to therapy has proven effective in the Czech and Slovak versions

Tomáš Řiháček of the Center for Psychotherapy Research, together with Valentína Cviková, published a study in the journal Psychotherapy Research validating the psychometric properties of the Czech and Slovak versions of the brief Session Reactions Scale (SRS-3-B) questionnaire. This tool, consisting of just 14 items, is designed to help therapists systematically capture how clients experience individual sessions, in terms of both positive and unpleasant or inhibiting reactions. The analysis confirmed that the questionnaire has good psychometric properties – the individual items do not overlap, are correlated with other indicators of the therapeutic process, and are comparable across language versions. Furthermore, the authors demonstrated that, despite its brevity, the questionnaire captures most of the reactions that clients spontaneously recall after a session.

NewsFresh studiesFor parents and teachers

How Prejudices Spread Among Friends

Prejudice against ethnic and religious groups is a serious and widespread problem in today’s society, across countries and cultures. Research has long shown, however, that we do not form our attitudes toward other groups entirely on our own—they are also strongly influenced by the people around us, especially family and friends. Numerous studies have confirmed that friends’ levels of prejudice do indeed converge over time, but a key question remained unanswered: How significant is the impact of this socialization on the overall level of prejudice within a broader social network (such as a circle of friends or a school classroom)? Does friendship between people with different levels of prejudice tend to lead to a convergence of attitudes, or, conversely, to an increase in differences? A new study, in which our member Tibor Žingora participated, focused precisely on this question.

NewsFor practitioners

Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization: Call for Abstracts