South-East European Regional Conference of Psychology, 2009, Sofia, Bulgaria

Abstract

The first South-East European Regional Conference of Psychology was held in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 30 October to 1 November 2009, under the Patronage of the President of Bulgaria and the auspices of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS), and the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP), with further financial support provided by the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA) and the European Health Psychology Society (EHPS). The conference was hosted by the Bulgarian Psychological Society under the Conference Presidency of Dr Plamen Dimitrov, who was supported by Professor Sava Djonev as Chair of the Scientific Program Committee. It attracted over 350 participants from 25 countries, including 14 countries from the SEE region and its immediate neighbours. The Scientific Program explored ways and means to promote the role of psychology individually and institutionally at regional and international levels. Planning is already under way to organize a second regional conference in three years’ time.

Le premier Congrès régional de psychologie du Sud-Est de l’Europe s’est tenu à Sofia, en Bulgarie, du 30 octobre au 1^er novembre 2009, sous le patronage du Président de la Bulgarie et sous les auspices de l’Association internationale de psychologie appliquée (IAAP), de l’Union internationale de psychologie scientifique (IUPsyS) et de l’Association internationale de psychologie interculturelle (IACCP), avec un appui financier supplémentaire offert par la Fédération européenne des associations de psychologues (EFPA) et la Société européenne de psychologie de la santé (EHPS). Le congrès était organisé par la Société de psychologie de Bulgarie et c’est le Dr. Plamen Dimitrov qui en assumait la présidence, appuyé par le professeur Sava Djonev qui présidait le Comité du programme scientifique. Le congrès a attiré plus de 350 participants en provenance de 25 pays, incluant 14 pays de la région du sud-est de l’Europe et des pays avoisinants. Le programme scientifique a exploré les diverses façons de promouvoir le rôle de la psychologie aux plans individuel et institutionnel aux niveaux régional et international. La planification de l’organisation d’un second congrès régional dans trois ans a déjà débutée.

El primer Congreso regional de psicología del Sureste de Europa ha tenido lugar en Sofia (Bulgaria), del 30 de octubre al 1 de noviembre de 2009. Ha contado con el patrocinio del Sr. Presidente de Bulgaria, y ha estado auspiciado por la Asociación Internacional de Psicologia Aplicada (IAAP), la Unión Internacional de Psicología Científica (IUPsyS) y la Asociación Internacional de Psicología Transcultural (IACCP). También ha contado con un apoyo financiero suplementario que han ofrecido la Federación Europea de Asociaciones de Psicología (EFPA) y la Sociedad Europea de Psicología de la Salud (EHPS). El Congreso fué organizado por la Sociedad de Psicología de Bulgaria, y ha sido presidido por el Dr. Plamen Dimitrov, con el apoyo del Profesor Sava Djonev, presidente del programa científico. La reunión ha conseguido atraer a más de 350 participantes, procedentes de 25 países, incluídos 14 países del Sureste de Europa y áreas vecinas. El programa científico ha explorado los diversos modos de promover el papel de la psicología individual e institucional tanto a nivel regional como internacional. Como consecuencia del entusiasmo que el Congreso ha generado, se ha comenzado ya a dar pasos para organizar dentro de tres años un nuevo Congreso regional.

Keywords:

• Psychology
• Regional conference
• South-East Europe

General Idea

The South-East European Regional Conference of Psychology (SEERCP) was held in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 30 October to 1 November 2009, under the theme “South Eastern Europe Looking Ahead: Paradigms, Schools, Needs and Achievements of Psychology in the Region.” It was the eighth regional conference of psychology organized under the auspices of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS), and the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP). Regional conferences are held every two years between the large international congresses organized by IAAP and IUPsyS. They were introduced as a joint venture among IUPsyS, IAAP, and IACCP to review the current state of psychology in a particular region and to foster its development by increasing communication between scientific researchers and professionals, disseminating psychological knowledge and expertise, and supporting the organization of psychology within the region. Previous regional conferences have been held in Guangzhou, China, in 1995 (Knowles, 1996; Zhang, 1996); Mexico City, Mexico, in 1997 (Knowles, 1998); Durban, South Africa, in 1999; Mumbai, India, in 2001 (Barnes & Knowles, 2003); Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in 2003 (Sabourin & Knowles, 2004); Bangkok, Thailand, in 2005 (Knowles, 2006); and Amman, Jordan, in 2007 (Knowles & Sabourin, 2008).

Specific Idea

The 2009 regional conference was held under the Patronage of the President of Bulgaria and received financial support from IAAP, IUPsyS, IACCP, the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations, and the European Health Psychology Society. It was hosted by the Bulgarian Psychological Society, whose President was Dr Plamen Dimitrov, and received organizational support from the Department of Psychology of Sofia University, the Institute of Psychology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the Bulgarian Association of Applied Psychology, and the Bulgarian Association of Young Psychologists “4 April.” The Chair of the Local Organizing Committee was also Dr Dimitrov, and the Chair of the Scientific Program Committee was Professor Sava Djonev. The main objective of this regional event was “to demonstrate the achievements and enhance the capacity-building collaboration of psychologists in the region and the world,” as stated in the program.

SEERCP offered the Balkan and neighboring countries two golden opportunities. One was to foster the growth of cooperation, collaboration, and cohesion in the research and practice of psychology throughout the region. The other was to stimulate the development of national societies and associations of psychology in SEE both individually and collectively. These were important opportunities because psychologists in the SEE region have been more oriented toward Western Europe than within their own region.

The conference attracted over 350 participants, of whom approximately half came from SEE regional countries (including Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Turkey) or countries immediately outside the SEE region (Armenia, Moldova, Russia, and the Ukraine). The remaining half of the participants came from Western Europe (Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, and the United Kingdom), and other countries stretching to the far corners of the world including Australia, Canada, Singapore, South Africa, and the United States of America.

The conference was held on the central campus of Sofia University “St Kliment Ohridski,” Bulgaria’s principal university, located in downtown Sofia. Sofia University was established in the immediate aftermath of Bulgaria gaining independence in 1879. The building on what is now its central campus has three magnificent sandstone wings, all of neoclassical design, built between 1924 and 1934 with the financial support of the Georgiev brothers, whose statues can be found on each side of the main entrance. The university is located on one corner of a triangle comprising the inner precinct of Sofia and is joined by cultural and scientific institutions such as galleries, libraries, and the Academy of Sciences. The other two corners of the triangle represent the shopping and commercial centre of the city and the political and administrative nucleus of the nation.

The Scientific Program

The Scientific Program was coordinated by Professor Sava Djonev. Its structure and content were developed through a long period of consultation and collaboration resulting in over 150 proposals and suggestions that were initially received by the Organizing Committee from throughout the SEE region from national associations of psychology, other psychological institutions, and individuals. By July 30, 2009, more than 350 abstracts had been received from five continents. These provided the basis of the final Scientific Program which also included plenary and keynote sessions, 12 thematic symposia, and more than 25 workshops, open forums, and roundtables in various areas.

On the first day of the conference the keynote addresses were presented in four streams of three sessions each. The streams were focused on psychological factors underlying personal development and social change; crosscultural characteristics within and outside of South-East Europe; health and wellbeing; and disasters, crises, and terrorism. The second and third days of the conference were devoted to symposia, individual papers, and poster sessions, which were delivered in seven parallel streams.

Across all days, the Scientific Program may be briefly summarized along the themes of health psychology, school and developmental psychology, organizational psychology, psychological assessment, clinical and counseling psychology, applied social psychology, disaster and crisis psychology, economic psychology and public policy, and psychology as a profession, as follows.

Health Psychology focused on promoting positive health and developing healthy lifestyles. Major topics included the importance of physical exercise, diet, and understanding the role of the immune system. Special emphasis was placed on the needs of young people, particularly in the SEE region, addressing issues such as understanding adolescent health; the neurological basis of adolescent behavior; subjective wellbeing; social axioms and normative influences on behavior; social adjustment and the internet; body image satisfaction; and risk factors in smoking, alcohol use, sexual activity, and drug use. Other more general topics included developing coping skills and systematic interventions such as those to treat smoking, chronic illness, sleep disorders, and pain management.

School and Developmental Psychology focused on childhood wellbeing, threats to childhood wellbeing, and interventions to foster childhood wellbeing. Topics related to wellbeing included the social, emotional, and cognitive skills of children; parent–child communication and parental style; the influence of peer relations; and the role of discipline in the classroom. Threats to wellbeing included personal and family problems, social deprivation, computer anxiety, bullying and fighting at school, and institutional violence. Intervention strategies included a training course for the improvement of total wellbeing, a social skills training program for the social adjustment of young children, tools for identifying and assessing learning disabilities, a social skills program for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), techniques for parents and teachers to manage ADHD in the family and at school, and an early violence prevention program for adults, parents, and professionals in charge of young children.

Organizational Psychology focused on developing human capital and organizational effectiveness. Topics related to human capital included work motivation, vocational interests, work engagement, leadership, organizational culture, job satisfaction, affective wellbeing, and the importance of personal initiative in entrepreneurship. Human resource management practices aimed at increasing organizational effectiveness included the use of competency-based interviews in personnel recruitment, employee selection, developing teamwork competencies, utilizing management talent using corporate assessment and career development centers, and interventions to change work–life balance. Other topics dealt with managing work-related issues such as occupational stress, burnout, and resistance to change.

Psychological Assessment focused on test standards and professional training of test administrators. Some topics were concerned with generic issues such as the measurement of intelligence, personality, and neurological functioning, while others focused on test adaptation and validity over a wide range of tests in particular national settings. Examples included the MMPI-2, the Draw-A-Person Test, the Trait Emotional Intelligence Test, and the Language Development Survey, all in Bulgaria, as well as WISC-IV in Pakistan, the Fear Perception Scale in Portugal, the Star-Wave Test and the Job Stress Survey in Romania, the Bem Sex Role Inventory in Serbia, and the CES Depression Scale in Turkey. Other topics included problems, solutions, and challenges in test certification, and the role of psychological technologies in the development of psychological science.

Clinical and Counselling Psychology focused on mental health research and practice, and positive psychology in psychotherapy. These sessions fell into two broad categories. The first included everyday kinds of topic such as ego states and love attitudes, gender differences in expressed emotion, dreams, the nature of psychic experience, inner and outer reality in couples’ relationships, the effect of socioeconomic status on parenting style, and ethnic identity. The second category was more clinically related and included topics such as emotional distress; asthma and allergy; chronic pain; anger and aggression; maternal depression; depression in childhood and old age; dental phobia; and schizophrenia and other psychotic mental disorders. Further studies explored the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral group interventions on self-esteem and depression, virtual psychological counseling, and the question of prescriptive authority for psychologists in Europe.

Applied Social Psychology spanned a wide range of sociocultural topics. These included comprehension of the purpose of life; self-esteem; the distinction between knowledge and emotion; internal and external realities; trust in interpersonal attitudes; moral reasoning and Machiavellianism; collective intelligence; sociocultural aspects of creativity; intergenerational communication; sociocultural values and communication; ethnic identity within and across ethnic groups; sex role orientation; forgiveness in close relationships; biological and ecological effects on male mating behaviour; sex role orientation and relationship satisfaction; correlates of marital satisfaction; crosscultural similarities and differences between families; personality differences (extraversion and introversion); male and female differences in the use of mobile phones; and gender differences in the discourse of politicians. Other topics included the role of acculturation strategies in reducing discrimination against immigrants, the use of “encounter groups” in crosscultural settings, a program to reduce recidivism of criminals by focusing on the restoration of the prisoner’s dignity, and stability and change in cultural values.

Disaster and Crisis Psychology focused on the causes of disaster, crisis and trauma, as well as strategies for managing their consequences. These topics fell into two main categories. In the first, papers addressed more specific issues such as traffic accidents and suicide, the causes of each, and corresponding programs to prevent them. In the second category topics primarily addressed large-scale catastrophes resulting from natural disasters, war, and terrorism. Here, one emphasis was placed on pre-disaster planning and preparation where the aim was to promote the availability of urgent psychological assistance and to decrease the development of subsequent psychological illnesses. This involves the development of relief programs for the acute phase after a disaster has occurred, and requires that national strategies to establish agencies and support systems to provide psychological crisis management in the short term be implemented. A second emphasis was on the necessity of psychosocial rebuilding programs and mental health services for the long term to address the prolonged and enduring effects of such traumatic events. Papers on terrorism described the psychological profile of terrorists, and advances, especially in South-East Asia, aimed at breaking the cycle of violence of convicted terrorists.

Psychology, Economy and Public Policy encompassed a relatively small number of papers that focused on aspects of economic psychology and policy issues. Topics on economic psychology included decision-making in shopping, attitudes to money (embracing security, preservation of wealth, and power–prestige), investment decision-making, and government assistance for small businesses, while topics on policy issues included public safety in urban environments, authoritarianism in society, and policy aspects of providing psychological support for sport. In the new growth area of neuroeconomics the experimental use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study brain activity was also described.

Psychology as a Profession covered a relatively small number of papers that addressed Teaching Psychology and Issues Facing the Profession of Psychology. Topics on the teaching of psychology included the vocational interests of psychology students, career counselling of PhD students, improving the communication skills of future teachers, and the role of group-based learning in higher education. In the wider professional context, topics included analyzing the multiple roles that psychologists can play within the court room (as an expert witness or evaluator) and outside (as a mediator or consultant), and illustrating how the Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles for Psychologists can serve as a guide for a national society or association of psychology when developing or reviewing a code of ethics.

Capacity-building efforts of the conference were addressed in some 25 roundtables and training and demonstration workshops. They addressed a wide range of themes, including:

•	the future of regional networking among professionals and institutions
•	building conditions for successful joint research projects, academic links, professional training programs, and regional exchange initiatives
•	is there a need for an English-language regional journal of psychology?
•	is there a shared development agenda for SEE applied psychology?
•	organizing regular and coordinated regional meetings and conferences
•	implementing the EuroPsy Certificate in the region—experience, readiness and concerns
•	building effective national societies or associations of psychology
•	youth issues in psychology.

Two major national capacity-building efforts were conducted, one under the auspices of IUPsyS and the other organized by the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA). The purpose of the IUPsyS National Capacity Building workshop was to allow representatives of national psychological associations in South-East Europe to consider ways to further develop their capability to intervene and advocate for the regional development and recognition of psychology. The EFPA workshop outlined the advantages of forming collaborative networks and regional confederations of national societies and associations of psychology, and illustrated this in particular in the area of the national certification of psychologists by describing its success in developing the EuroPsy.

The conference also allowed for participants to work together in open forums and future search discussions, training and demonstration workshops, information exchanges, ad hoc meetings, and book and test exhibitions.

A special feature of the conference was the Young Psychologists’ Group coordinated by Borislav Slavchov. The Scientific Program included a specific stream of student symposia and workshops where students were able to present their studies and projects in especially designed two-hour sessions using interactive methods, posters, PowerPoint presentations, short videos, role-plays, and simulations. A youth roundtable addressed the topic “How to do it in Southeast Europe—Studying and Careers in Psychology” and provided for a venue for an open discussion on the specific issues of students and young psychologists in the SEE region. Young psychologists were also able to attend a special three-hour workshop on “EU grants—possibility for exchange and collaboration between psychologists in SEE.”

General Comment

As may be seen, the Scientific Program was comprehensive and rich in diversity. It painted a picture of psychology in South-East Europe as vigorous and adventurous. Its content illustrated psychology’s huge contribution in promoting positive aspects of health, education, work, and everyday living, and attended to some of the challenges and risks typifying each of these domains. Contributions also described preventative and remedial resources to address problems in every one of these areas of health, education, work, and everyday life, and demonstrated the relevance at one time or other of each of the above, at every level of society from individual, group, organization, and community to nation.

Not surprisingly, one of the distinguishing characteristics of the conference was that the contributions in the Scientific Program were set within the context of the dramatic political, social, and economic changes that have occurred in South-East Europe. As the contributions to the conference demonstrated, the effects of these changes have been profound. They include increased mobility as many young scholars from Bulgaria and other countries in the SEE region are seeking tertiary education at universities in Western Europe and even further afield, and the effects of globalisation on modifying the values that underlie the national cultures of the countries in the SE European region.

Social Program

The opening ceremony was held in the main hall of the university, the Aula, a grand auditorium, which was approached via a magnificent staircase that arose from a spacious and spectacular marble-studded foyer. A letter of welcome from the Bulgarian President who was overseas on official duties was read, followed by welcoming remarks from the Deputy Minister of Education, Youth and Science; the Chair of the Conference Organizing Committee, Plamen Dimitrov; the Chair of the Scientific Program Committee, Sava Djonev; the President of IAAP, Michael Knowles; and the President of IUPsyS, Rainer Silbereisen.

The welcoming reception was held in the National Archaeological Museum, which befitted the long history and rich culture of Bulgaria between the seventh and seventeenth centuries, and which houses the extraordinary Thracian gold collection. The reception began with folk dancing by young children dressed in traditional national costumes. After a short official welcome by the IAAP President, delegates mixed and mingled delightfully over servings of selected Bulgarian finger-foods and wines.

Other social events included a folklore dinner with lively and extensive dancing; sight-seeing tours of the city of Sofia highlighting its beautiful tree-lined boulevards, parks, and impressive public buildings, including a visit to the Boyana Church, recognized as a UNESCO World Culture Heritage site; pre- and post-conference day-tours to Bulgaria’s second largest city of Plovdiv with its nineteenth-century-style old town featuring winding cobbled streets and a Greek amphitheatre dating back to the second century AD; a restful holiday in seaside towns on the Black Sea; or, for the more adventurous, hiking in the fir and pine forests at the foothills of the Bulgarian mountains.

The closing ceremony was again held in the Aula with concluding addresses by Plamen Dimitrov, Sava Djonev, and Irene Zinovieva. Final congratulations for the wonderful and comprehensive success of the conference were expressed in a vote of appreciation by Michael Knowles and a gift on behalf of IAAP presented by Ray Fowler.

Postscript

In one sense the closing ceremony marked the end of a huge undertaking but in another way it was the beginning of a new era, in which planning has already begun for a conference to be held in three years’ time, again in South-East Europe, that will build on the momentum created in Sofia.