Research has posited that social media use during the day may be reflected in nighttime dreams. Nevertheless, no prior studies have explored frightening, unpleasant dreams arising from social media use. This study introduces the construct of the social media-related nightmare by (a) developing and validating a scale capturing negative-valenced dreams with themes of helplessness, loss of control, inhibition, victimization, and making mistakes in social media, and (b) examining relationships between social media use, social media-related nightmares, sleep quality, and affective well-being. A convenience sample of 595 Iranian adult social media users (Mage = 27.45, SDage = 11.42) reported on social media-related nightmare, social media use integration, anxiety, peace of mind, sleep quality, and nightmare distress. The Social Media-Related Nightmare Scale (SMNS) demonstrated a unidimensional structure with sound psychometric properties. The most common nightmares involved the inability to log in to social media and the disruption of relationships with other users. Social media use intensity predicted frequency of social media-related nightmares. These nightmares were correlated with increased anxiety, lower peace of mind, poor sleep quality, and nightmare distress. Importantly, social media-related nightmares mediated the relationship between social media use intensity and low affective well-being (i.e., anxiety and peace of mind), poor sleeping, and nightmare distress. The findings suggest that social media-related nightmares could be a potential pathway through which social media engagement may lead to affective distress and sleep difficulties.

Purpose Although a number of investigations have been carried out on the marketing outcomes of parasocial relationships (PSR) with food influencers on social media, little attention has been paid to the potential contribution of these one-sided emotional bonds to followers' eating attitudes and habits. Drawing on the Parasocial Theory, the role of parasocial attachment with food influencers was investigated in predicting eating disorders, food addiction, and grazing. To increase the accuracy of PSR measurement, a brief self-report scale was developed to gauge social media users' feelings of mutual awareness, attention, and adjustment with their favorite food influencer at a distance through social media.Methods Participants were a convenience sample of 405 Iranian social media users (231women; M age = 28.16, SD age = 9.40), who followed a favorite food influencer on social media.Results The 8-item Parasocial Relationship with Favorite Food Influencer Scale (PSRFFIS) revealed a unidimensional structure with excellent content and construct validity and internal consistency. Regarding gender differences, men showed stronger parasocial attachment to their favorite food influencers. Adjusting age, gender, and subjective social status as control variables, PSR with favorite food influencers partially contributed to the explanation of eating disorder symptom severity, food addiction, and grazing.Conclusion These findings show that PSR with favorite food influencers appears to be associated with followers' craving for food, which, in turn, may contribute to maladaptive eating habits. This highlights media-related factors, such as PSR with food influencers, as potential drivers of dysfunctional eating habits in the digital age, particularly in countries like Iran where disordered eating is prevalent.Level of evidence Level V-based on cross-sectional data (correlational study; scale development)

Mukbang, an internet-based audiovisual presentation wherein a host engages with the audience while consuming a diverse array of foods, has surfaced as a notable contributor to social media users’ diets. Some users display an inordinate craving for watching these eating shows, a phenomenon known as problematic mukbang watching. Given the high prevalence of eating disorders among Iranians, this study aimed to explore whether excessive mukbang watching could serve as a media-related risk factor for Iranian users’ dysfunctional eating. The Mukbang Addiction Scale (MAS), serving as the primary measure of excessive mukbang consumption, was translated and validated for this study. A convenience sample of 535 Iranian social media users completed the Persian version of MAS (MAS-P) and measures of mindful eating, disordered eating patterns, and food neophobia. The MAS-P was corroborated as unidimensional with quality internal consistency. Problematic mukbang watching was found to be negatively associated with mindful eating and eating self-efficacy, and positively linked with eating disorder symptom severity, food addiction, and grazing. Weekly unhealthy snacking frequency and weekly non-home food consumption frequency were significantly predicted by problematic mukbang watching. There was no significant association between problematic mukbang watching and food neophobia. The findings indicate that problematic mukbang watching may represent an online manifestation of dysfunctional eating patterns and seems to play a role in shaping maladaptive nutritional choices and habits.

Negativity bias predicts that individuals will attend to, learn from, and prioritize negative news more than positive news. Drawing from the addiction components model, this cross-sectional study conceptualized and measured "doomscrolling" as excessive thoughts, urges, or behaviors related to the consumption of negative news on social media platforms. Participants were a convenience sample (N = 747) of Iranian social media users. The 8-item, unidimensional Social Media Doomscrolling Scale showed excellent psychometric properties. Men were more likely than women to report doomscrolling. Most respondents reported arousal following doomscrolling. Doomscrolling was negatively associated with psychological wellbeing, satisfaction with life, and motivation to avoid unhealthy behaviors. Doomscrolling was positively associated to impulsivity, engagement in risky behaviors, depression, and future anxiety. Results suggest that doomscrolling is an arousing activity that has the potential to exacerbate worrisome thoughts about future, breed feelings of hopelessness, cultivate appetite for risk, and stifle health consciousness.

Objectives: Professionalism is essential to a strong and trusted patient-doctor relationship, which is believed to potentially enhance patient compliance and treatment outcomes. The purpose of our study was to develop and conduct a psychometric analysis of an assessment tool to evaluate the professional behavior of dental students. Materials and Methods: The study was performed in the School of Dentistry, Tehran University of Medical Sciences. After providing a pool of various criteria to assess professionalism, an expert panel prepared the primary version of the tool. The tool was set in a questionnaire frame to explore the significance level and evaluation feasibility of each criterion. The questionnaire was completed by tutors of the "Medical Ethics" course (n=6). After necessary revisions, face and content validity were evaluated by giving the checklist to eight experienced dental educators to determine the relevance, clarity, and simplicity of the questions. In the second stage, the final checklist (37 items) was given to dental educators to evaluate twenty students. To assess the reliability of this checklist, at least two professors evaluated each student, and weighted-κ was calculated. Minor revisions were made based on the received feedback. Results: According to our data, the total validity of the tool (S-CVI) was 100%. For all items except one, the weighted-κ coefficient was ≥ 0.5, indicating sufficient reliability for these items. Conclusion: Despite the limitations of the present study, the designed tool to evaluate professionalism among dental students in different clinical departments seems to be both valid and reliable.

Purpose This study aims to examine customer helping and advocacy behaviours within dyadic financial service relationships involving customers and fellow customer helpers. Design/methodology/approach The gift-giving literature was used to propose a customer-to-customer interaction model, which was tested and cross-validated among electronic banking customers in South Africa ( n = 404) and Australia ( n = 244). Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to respondents who are users of electronic banking services and who previously received help with the service from a fellow customer. Data analysis included multi-group structural equation modelling. Findings The findings support the view that selected source credibility dimensions may influence greater affective commitment towards fellow customer helpers at various levels. Subsequently, further altruistic gift-giving in the form of customer helping and advocacy behaviours may result from higher levels of affective commitment. Feeling secure in their relationships with fellow customer helpers, customer recipients of help are likely to further socialise other customers who may share a common interest in the service category (e.g. electronic banking), but do not necessarily support the financial service provider of the customer. Originality/value The findings extend the conceptual domain of affective commitment and shed light on the factors contributing to the development of strengthened bonds between customers and fellow customer helpers within dyadic financial service relationships. Additionally, greater financial service socialisation and use may be achieved when the helping and advocacy behaviours of customer helpers are not restricted to a specific service provider. Subsequently, the current investigation advances knowledge of the underlying processes involved in motivating these desired service outcomes and behaviours.

Fire safety on building construction sites as an important part of on-site safety management has rarely been studied for construction sites. To fill the knowledge gap, this research was conducted to identify important influencing factors on fire safety on construction sites, as well as their relationships, through a questionnaire administered to 1,492 fire officers in South Korea. The authors divided the questions into three factors (building, fire, and human) to distinguish factors affecting construction site fire safety. For the majority of the factors, there was high agreement on the importance level of factors affecting fire safety during construction between administrative and field firefighters. However, perception disparity did exist. The authors identified the interrelationships between factors through path analysis and structural equation modeling. The paths of factors showed the highest direct relation between building and fire factors, and the human factor played a mediator role between human and fire factors. The study contributes to the overall body of knowledge by providing officers’ insights into the factors contributing to fire safety on construction sites, as well as the quantification of the interrelationship among the factors, which will serve as the basis to develop effective safety measures, such as policies and regulations at both the project level and industry level, to address fire safety on construction sites. The SEM model developed in this study can also be used as a base model for future related studies.

Upgrading firefighters’ life satisfaction can enhance their job skills,and contribute to their safety and that of the public. This study’s purpose wasto identify general life satisfaction levels and national characteristics, includingfirefighters’ occupational issues in Korea and the US. The final sample sizes in this cross-sectional study were 1,523 for South Korea and 229 for the US. The findings were based onfirefighters’ physical/mental health and satisfaction with occupationalproblems. To measure their life satisfaction, six dimensions were examined:social, spiritual, intellectual, emotional, physical, and occupational. Theaverage satisfaction score of firefighters was 3.50 in Korea and 4.00 in theUS. The US showed high satisfaction in most subitems. However, US firefightersshowed low satisfaction in the physical context and Korean firefighters in the occupationalcontext. Multiple regression analysis of the variables affecting firefighters’ lifesatisfaction showed that the occupational dimension was significant in bothKorea and the US, and a similar analysis of demographic characteristics asindependent variables showed that differences in satisfaction by gender were importantin both countries. For Korea, the key variables were in the working hours section;for the US, in the specialty section. The results of this study should make iteasier to identify and focus on the relevant areas of firefighters’ workinglives in Korea and the US, thereby improving their life satisfaction.

The aim of this study was to compare linear equating (Levine and Tucker), equipercentile equating, and true and observed score IRT equating with fixed item parameter calibration methods when applied to non-equivalent groups taking forms which have various multidimensional structures: equal or unequal total test difficulty and similar or dissimilar difficulty within dimensions across forms. This situation may be common for large-scale test forms that are composed of multiple sub-content areas and are being administered to examinees of mixed abilities at different times. Within the specifications of this study, when forms differ in total difficulty but the difference in difficulty within dimensions is consistent across forms, the linear methods may be preferred. When forms differ in average item difficulty within dimensions, regardless of equal or unequal total test difficulty, the IRT method with fixed item parameter calibration is favoured when data are correlated.

This study investigated the effects of linking potentially multidimensional test forms using the fixed item parameter calibration. Forms had equal or unequal total test difficulty with and without confounding difficulty. The mean square errors and bias of estimated item and ability parameters were compared across the various confounding tests. The estimated discrimination parameters were influenced by the levels of correlation between dimensions. The mean square errors (MSEs) of the average of the true discrimination parameters with the estimated value were smallest when the correlation equaled 0; however, the MSEs of the multidimensional discrimination parameter were smallest when the correlation was larger than 0. The estimated difficulty parameters were highly affected by different amount of confounding difficulty within dimensions. Furthermore, the MSEs of the average of the true ability parameters on the first and second dimensions with the estimated ability were smaller than those from the ability parameter on each dimension for all conditions. The pattern varied according to the number of common items, and the measures of MSE and squared bias were relatively consistent across forms at the same level of correlation, except for the condition where the correlation was 0 and the number of common items was 8.