Preface to the Special Issue

Dear colleagues, This Special Issue of the Review of Psychology includes a collection of the abstracts of the contributions to the 9th Alps-Adria Psychology Conference that took place on September 16 – 18, 2010 at the Alps-Adria University of Klagenfurt in Austria, and the awarded papers presented by six young scientists at this conference. In the preparation phase to the first conference (then called a symposium), the author of this foreword visited all the departments of psychology of the universities in the Alps-Adria region. Nearly 25 years ago – namely on September 26, 1986 – representatives of these departments in Graz, Klagenfurt, Linz, Ljubljana, Maribor, Padua, Rijeka, Trieste, Venice, Udine, Zadar and Zagreb gathered together for a meeting at the University of Klagenfurt to plan the first combined scientific conference. Sixty five speakers from 13 psychology departments took part in the first Alps Adria Psychology Symposium at the University of Klagenfurt on September 16-18, 1987. In the following years the conference took place in Trieste (1991), Ljubljana (1993), Zagreb (1996), Pecs (1999), Rovereto (2002), Zadar (2005) und Ljubljana (2008), each with many scientifically highly esteemed presentations and with an increasing number of participants. At the 9th Conference, again at the presently named Alps-Adria University of Klagenfurt, over 230 contributions will be presented by speakers from over 20 countries to over 300 participants. The contributions to this conference include oral presentations, poster presentations, thematic symposia, podium discussions, and round table discussions. The papers and posters cover topics from nearly all disciplines of psychology: general, biological, developmental and diagnostic psychology, methodology, clinical and health psychology, social and educational psychology. Other themes are also taken up that establish a connection between medicine, economy, and health care with psychology. The contributions presented here mirror the activity of scientific psychology at the departments in the Alps-Adria region. They demonstrate a clear interdisciplinary basis and show that scientific psychology achieves decisive results in fundamental research. At the same time, however, the many application-oriented contributions demonstrate in how many areas psychology plays an important role. All contributions submitted were anonymously examined by 2 reviewers from members of the Scientific Committees and other international examiners from the Alps-Adria countries, all of which guarantees the high scientific quality of the research results presented here. The continuous organizing of the Alps Adria Psychology Conferences for the past 25 years, the increasing number of participants and lecturers as well as the high quality of the contributions show that regional conferences for the general area of psychology are also attractive, besides international scientific and professional conferences and the general national conferences. In addition to scientific cooperation and exchanges of ideas and experiences, conviviality also plays a role. The 9th Alps Adria Conference has set as its goal the support of young scientists. This goal is achieved by economic incentives, such as reduced registration fees and the fellowship awards on the one hand, and through the allocation of young scientist awards on the other hand. Young graduate students – those in master’s programs up to the age of 30 and in doctoral programs up to the age of 35 – have been invited to write a scientific article that in the case of getting an award would be published in the Review of Psychology. The articles submitted went through the regular review process of this journal, including international reviewers. In this way the contributions by Dmitrij Agroskin, Barbara Dolenc, Olivia Kada, Tatjana Novak, Michele Scandola and Koraljka Modić Stanke have been chosen for the award. The Review of Psychology was founded as the scientific publication for the Alps-Adria region. The goal seems to have been largely fulfilled, as the journal is highly recognized far outside of the Alps-Adria region. For this we owe great appreciation to the founder Prof. Vladimir Kolesarić, his successor Alija Kulenović and the present editor-in-chief Vesna Buško. Our thanks also go to the publisher Naklada Slap, who was willing to publish this special issue of the journal. The reviewers went to great effort for their work – and to them a hearty thank you as well. And, finally, I would like to thank the authors for their contributions