Students’ perceptions about school success promotion strategies are of great importance for schools, as they are an indicator of how students perceive the school success promotion strategies. The objective of this study was to develop and analyze the validity evidence based of The Students’ Perceptions of School Success Promoting Strategies Inventory (SPSI), which assesses both individual students’ perceptions of their school success promoting strategies, and dimensions of school quality. A structure of 7 related factors was found, which showed good adjustment indices in two additional different samples, suggesting that this is a well-fitting multi-group model (p < .001). All scales presented good reliability values. Schools with good academic results registered higher values in Career development, Active learning, Proximity, Educational Technologies and Extra-curricular activities (p < .05). SPSI showed to be adequate to measure within-schools (students within schools) dimensions of school success. In addition, there is preliminary evidence for its adequacy for measuring school success promotion dimensions between schools for 4 dimensions. This study supports the validity evidence based of the SPSI (validity evidence based on test content, on internal structure, on relations to other variables and on consequences of testing). Future studies should test for within- and between-level variance in a bigger sample of schools.

The Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ) has been used in psychology research during the last decade. The instrument has been used in a variety of life domains: psychological well-being, dispositional happiness, depressive symptoms and career adaptability. This investigation studies the factor structure and internal consistency of the SRQ, extracting a short version in the Spanish context and examining its relation to academic variables (self-regulated learning and grades). The analysis started from a version with 63 items, representing seven conceptual dimensions. This version was administered to a sample of 834 students from Education and Psychology. The data from the above-mentioned sample were randomly divided into two sets, each containing 50% of the students (n = 417): exploratory and confirmatory. In the exploratory sample, exploratory factor analysis findings suggested a more parsimonious measurement model, with 17 items and 4 first-order factors. The confirmatory sample was used in the confirmatory factor analysis. The results show evidence for the internal consistency of the Short Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SSRQ) in the Spanish context, with indices greater than .90 and errors around .05. Regarding academic variables, both versions are related to self-regulated learning (r = .40, p < .01) and students’ grades (r = .15, p < .01). Differences from other studies done in North America are discussed, as well as similarities to a study from North-West University (in South Africa).

Servant Leadership emphasizes employee’s development and growth within a context of moral and social concern. Nowadays, this management change towards workers´ wellbeing is highlighted as an important issue. The aims of this paper are to adapt to Spanish speakers the Servant Leadership Survey (SLS) by van Dierendonck and Nuijten (2011), and to analyze its factorial validity through confirmatory factor analysis and measurement invariance in three countries. A sample of 638 working people from three Spanish-speaking countries (Spain, Argentina and Mexico) participated in the study. In all three countries, confirmatory factor analyses corroborate the eight factor structure (empowerment, accountability, standing back, humility, authenticity, courage, forgiveness and stewardship) with one second order factor (servant leadership) (in all three samples, CFI, IFI > .92, TLI > .91, RMSEA < .70). Also, factor loadings, reliability and convergent validity were acceptable across samples. Furthermore, through measurement invariance analysis, we detected model equivalence in all three countries including structural residual invariance (ΔCFI = .001). Finally, cultural differences in some dimensions were found and discussed, opening the way for future cross-cultural studies.

Obesity represents a serious health issue affecting millions of people in Western industrialized countries. The severity of the medical problems it causes is paralleled by the fact that obesity has become a social stigma that affects the psychological health-related quality of life of individuals with weight problems. Our study, with 111 obese patients of a Spanish hospital, focused specifically on how overt and subtle discrimination is related to subjective well-being (affect balance and life satisfaction) and physical health-related quality of life. It was shown that overt (r = –.28, p < .01 with affect balance; r = –.26, p < .01 with life satisfaction) and subtle discrimination (r = –.28, p < .01 with affect balance; r = –.27, p < .01 with life satisfaction) were negatively linked with subjective well-being, and that there was a negative correlation between overt discrimination and physical health-related quality of life (r = –.26, p < .01). Additionally, it was found that overt discrimination was a mediator variable in the relationship between physical health-related quality of life and subjective well-being using the Baron and Kenny procedure. Finally, it is discussed the relationship between discrimination, subjective well-being and physical health-related quality of life in obese people.

The aim of this work is to study the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of patients diagnosed with Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia (PD/Ag), as well as the characteristics of the treatment and its results and cost in a University Psychology Clinic. Fifty patients demanded psychological assistance for PD/Ag; 80% were women, with an average age of 29.22 years (SD = 9.03). Mean number of evaluation sessions was 3.26 (SD = 1.03), and of treatment sessions, 13.39 (SD = 9.237). Of the patients, 83.33% were discharged (that is, questionnaire scores were below the cut-off point indicated by the authors, and no PD/Ag was observed at readministration of the semistructured interview), 5.5% refused treatment, and 11% were dropouts. The average number of treatment sessions of patients who achieved therapeutic success was 15.13 (SD = 8.98). Effect sizes (d) greater than 1 were obtained in all the scales. Changes in all scales were significant (p < .05). The estimated cost of treatment for patients who achieved therapeutic success was 945.12€. The treatment results are at least similar to those of studies of efficacy and effectiveness for PD/Ag. The utility of generalizing treatments developed in research settings to a welfare clinic is discussed.

Conducted with a community sample, this study first tested the hypothesis that the constant association of Non-Suicidal Self Injury (NSSI) with various psychopathological states may be overrepresented because many of the studies reporting these associations used clinical samples. Secondly, the study aimed to test the emotional regulation model of NSSI by exploring the functions, the affective antecedents and consequences of NSSI episodes and to understand this emotion regulation role of NSSI in the light of Attachment Theory by differentiating self-injurers and non-self-injurers on relevant romantic attachment dimensions. A third purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that individuals currently performing NSSI could be differentiated on these dimensions from those who had ceased engaging in NSSI. Pursuing these purposes, 518 university students (171 males and 347 females), aged 17 to 62 years old completed the Self-Injury Questionnaire – Treatment Related (Claes & Vandereycken, 2007), the Brief Symptom Inventory (Derogatis, 1982) and the Adult Attachment Scale (Collins & Read, 1990). Individuals with NSSI scored significantly higher on all BSI subscales (all p < .001). Results also revealed the existence of significant differences between participants with and without NSSI on Anxiety (Z = –2.92, p < .01) and Comfort with Proximity (Z = –3.18, p < .01), and significant differences between past self-injurers and current self-injurers on Trust in Others (Z = –2.40, p < .05). These results are discussed by linking NSSI and Attachment Theory literatures.

One experiment used a free operant procedure with rats to compare ABA, AAB and ABC renewal by using a within-subject testing procedure. All rats were first trained to press a lever for food in context A. Lever pressing was then extinguished in either context A or context B. For rats in the groups ABA and ABC extinction took place in context B, while the rats in group AAB received extinction in the same context in which acquisition took place (context A). Finally, all rats were tested for renewal in two sessions. One extinction session was carried out in the same extinction context and another session in a different context. Rats in the group ABA were tested in context B and in context A; rats in the group AAB were tested in contexts A and B, whereas the group ABC was tested in contexts B and C. The results of the ANOVA showed context renewal since all groups had higher rates of responding when they were tested outside the extinction context, F(2, 21) = 15.32, p = .001, ηp 2 = .59; however, AAB and ABC renewal was lesser than ABA renewal, F(1, 21) = 16.70, p = .0001, ηp 2 = .61.

Cognitive deficit in Parkinson’s disease has been traditionally considered as being mainly related to executive dysfunction secondary to frontostriatal affectation. However, this traditional consideration has recently been challenged. Forty-three nondemented PD patients (mean age = 59.19; SD = 9.64) and twenty control group subjects (mean age = 60.85; SD = 12.26) were studied. They were assessed on a wide range of cognitive functions. Patients showed motor slowing (p = .012), along with alterations in visuoperceptive (p = .001), visuospatial (p = .007) and visuoconstructive functions (p = .017), as well as in visual span (direct: p = .008; inverse: p = .037). Regarding executive functions, differences were not observed in classical measures for verbal fluency (phonetic: p = .28; semantic: p = .27) or in response inhibition (Stroop test: p = .30), while execution was altered in other prefrontal tasks (Wisconsin Test: p = .003; action fluency: p = .039). Patients showed altered performance in verbal learning processes (p = .005) and delayed memory (free: p = .032; cued: p = .006), visuospatial learning (p = .016) and linguistic functions (naming: p < .001; comprehension: p = .007). Poor performance in visuospatial memory is predicted by deficits in working memory and visuospatial perception. Taken together, the observed alterations not only suggest prefrontal affectation, but also temporal and parietal systems impairment. Thus, cognitive dysfunction in nondemented PD patients cannot be exclusively explained by frontostriatal circuit affectation and the resulting executive dysfunction.

In 1913, the Anthropoid Station for psychological and physiological research in chimpanzees and other apes was founded by the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences (Berlin) near La Orotava, Tenerife. Eugene Teuber, its first director, began his work at the Station with several studies of anthropoid apes’ natural behavior, particularly chimpanzee body language. In late 1913, the psychologist Wolfgang Köhler, the second and final director of the Station, arrived in Tenerife. During his stay in the Canary Islands, Köhler conducted a series of studies on intelligent behavior in chimpanzees that would become classics in the field of comparative psychology. Those experiments were at the core of his book Intelligenzprüfungen an Menschenaffen (The Mentality of Apes), published in 1921. This paper analyzes Köhler’s experiments and notions of intelligent behavior in chimpanzees, emphasizing his distinctly descriptive approach to these issues. It also makes an effort to elucidate some of the theoretical ideas underpinning Köhler’s work. The ultimate goal of this paper is to assess the historical significance of Köhler’s book within the context of the animal psychology of his time.

Men sleep shorter and go to bed and get up later than women, thus they are laterchronotypes. This difference between the sexes is most pronounced betweenpuberty and menopause indicating the possibility that morningness is subject tosexual dimorphism related to reproductive aspects. The objective of the studywas to compare the sleep-wake behavior of women with their actual partners andwith their preferred partners. As a hypothesis, we expect some assortment inmating concerning chronotype (with the actual partner), but we also expect ahigher synchronization with a preferred ideal partner. 167 women were analyzedin this study (mean age: 23.0 ± 2.57 (SD) years).Mated women were earlier chronotypes than their partners (t= –2.051, p = .042,d = .34) but the difference was small (11:02 min± 1:04 min). The results of the present study showed women preferringa partner synchronized to their own sleep-wake-rhythm more than their actualpartners were. The above result was true either for single facets of thesleep-wake rhythm (e.g. bed time, sleep onset) or for midpoint of sleep on freedays – an indicator of actual chronotype: women’s andtheir partners’ correlation of midpoint of sleep was lower(r = .513) than women’s and their idealpartners’ correlation (r = .855). Amongstvarious sleep-wake measures, women particularly preferred a partner going to bedat the same time. Assortative mating according to sleep-wake rhythm exists, butwomen for long-term pair-bonds would like their partners far moresynchronized.

Extant literature suggests that Portuguese college students frequently drinking alcohol and experience a variety of alcohol-related negative consequences. However, to our knowledge, there is no validated measure to assess negative consequences of drinking alcohol for college students in Portugal. This article describes a validation of the Portuguese version of the Brief Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire. Originally developed by Kahler, Strong, and Read (2005), this 24-item questionnaire is a widely used self-report measure with strong psychometric properties and validity for the evaluation of the negative consequences of drinking in college students. We collected data from 620 students at the University of Coimbra (Portugal). Participants completed (a) a background questionnaire, (b) the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), (c) the Daily Drinking Questionnaire - Revised (DDQ-R), and (d) the Brief Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire (B-YAACQ) translated into Portuguese as part of this study. Analyses showed that items fit a unidimensional Rasch model well with items infit statistics raging from .82 to 1.27, supporting using all items to create a total sum score of the Portuguese version of the B-YAACQ. The Portuguese version of the B-YAACQ showed adequate internal reliability (α = .87) and concurrent validity. Results support its use and integration in research on interventions targeted to reduce adverse effects associated with excessive drinking among Portuguese college students.

The present study aimed to clarify the nature and dimensions of achievement goals and to examine structural differences in students’ goals across school levels. Participants were 134 students from 5th and 6th grades, and 423 students from 7th to 9th grades. A variety of achievement goals were assessed, including mastery goals and several performance-related goals representing three main dimensions: competition, self-presentation, and valence.

Two alternative models were tested, using confirmatory factor analysis. For middle-school students a three factor model with presentation, competition, and simple evaluation/mastery goals, was found χ²(132, N = 134) = 160.9, p < .001; CFI = .94; RMSEA = .04, 95%CI [.02 – .06]. In the junior-high sample, one avoidance factor, one competition factor, and a simple evaluation/mastery factor, best fitted the data χ²(114, N = 423) = 269.8638 p < .001; CFI = .93; RMSEA = .06, 95%CI [.05 - .07] thus suggesting that distinct dimensions organize younger and older students’ motivation. However, common to both grade levels was the existence of (a) separate but low incidence competition goals, and (b) simple evaluation goals, which encompass neither self-presentation nor competition, and are closely linked to mastery goals. Moreover, significant differences were found in the relative importance attached by students to the different types of goals (p < .001 for all comparisons), both at middle-school F(2, 266) = 220.98; p < .001; η2 = .624) and at junior-high school F(2, 820) = 464.4; p < .001; η2 = .531.

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a computerized two-choice discrimination task in which stimuli have to be categorized as belonging to target categories or attribute categories by pressing, as quickly and accurately as possible, one of two response keys. The discrimination association model has been recently proposed for the analysis of reaction time and accuracy of an individual respondent to the IAT. The model disentangles the influences of three qualitatively different components on the responses to the IAT: stimuli discrimination, automatic association, and termination criterion. The article presents General Race (GRace), a MATLAB-based application for fitting the discrimination association model to IAT data. GRace has been developed for Windows as a standalone application. It is user-friendly and does not require any programming experience. The use of GRace is illustrated on the data of a Coca Cola-Pepsi Cola IAT, and the results of the analysis are interpreted and discussed.

An integrating and dynamic model of personality that allows predicting theresponse of the basic factors of personality, such as the Big Five Factors (B5F)or the general factor of personality (GFP) to acute doses of drug is presentedin this paper. Personality has a dynamic nature, i.e., as a consequence of astimulus, the GFP dynamics as well as each one of the B5F of personalitydynamics can be explained by the same model (a system of three coupleddifferential equations). From this invariance hypothesis, a partial differentialequation, whose solution relates the GFP with each one of the B5F, is deduced.From this dynamic approach, a co-evolution of the GFP and each one of the B5Foccurs, rather than an unconnected evolution, as a consequence of the samestimulus. The hypotheses and deductions are validated through an experimentaldesign centered on the individual, where caffeine is the considered stimulus.Thus, as much from a theoretical point of view as from an applied one, themodels here proposed open a new perspective in the understanding and study ofpersonality like a global system that interacts intimately with the environment,being a clear bet for the high level inter-disciplinary research.

The lack of methodological rigor is frequent in most of instruments developed to assess the knowledge of teachers regarding Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The aim of this study was to develop a questionnaire, namely Questionnaire for the evaluation of teachers’ knowledge of ADHD (MAE-TDAH), for measuring the level of knowledge about ADHD of infant and primary school teachers. A random sample of 526 teachers from 57 schools in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country and Navarre was used for the analysis of the psychometric properties of the instrument. The participant teachers age range was between 22 and 65 (M = 42.59; SD = 10.89), and there were both generalist and specialized teachers. The measure showed a 4 factor structure (Etiology of ADHD, Symptoms/Diagnosis of ADHD, General information about ADHD and Treatment of ADHD) with adequate internal consistency (Omega values ranged between .83 and .91) and temporal stability indices (Spearman’s Rho correlation values ranged between .62 and .79). Furthermore, evidence of convergent and external validity was obtained. Results suggest that the MAE-TDAH is a valid and reliable measure when it comes to evaluating teachers’ level of knowledge of ADHD.

Even though the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) is one of the most popular instruments to assess anxiety today, only limited data is available about its psychometric characteristics and normative values in clinical Spanish populations. A study was conducted to test the psychometric characteristics of a Spanish adaptation of the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) in a sample of 918 outpatients being treated at a community mental health center in Spain. Results confirmed the adaptation’s high internal consistency (∝ = .91), substantial test-retest reliability at 8–10 weeks (r = .84, p < .01), and satisfactory convergent validity with the Anxiety (r = .86, p < .01), Somatization (r = .81, p < .01), Obsessive-compulsive (r = .60, p < .01), and Phobic Anxiety (r = .63, p < .01) dimensions of the SCL-90-R, and with the Anxious Thoughts Inventory (r = .57, p < .01). Gender differences in BAI scores did occur, so normative values appear separately for each gender.

Executive Function is a multidimensional construct that includes a wide range of cognitive abilities that allow solving goal-directed behaviors efficiently. Its development begins in early childhood and continues through adolescence. A key aspect of Executive Function is planning, defined as the capacity to generate and organize the necessary step sequence to carry out a goal-directed behavior. The aim of this study was to assess the development of planning in children. The Tower of London task was used in 270 children aged 6, 8, 11, and 13 years. The results showed that the time required to generate and organize the plan to solve a goal-directed problem increases as the difficulty of the problem increases, and that older children need less time to solve problems with a certain level of difficulty than younger children F(15, 1330) = 8.787; MSE = 1.441; p < .01; η2 =.090. These results are in line with the findings that planning develops through childhood and even during the first years of adolescence.

Cognitive deficits have a significant impact on the daily performance of fibromyalgia patients. This paper analyzes executive functioning and decision-making performance, and the relationships between these functions and pain, anxiety, depression and medication in fibromyalgia patients. A group of fibromyalgia patients (FG) (n = 85) was compared with a healthy control group (CG) (n = 85) in their performance in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). In the WCST, results showed a percentage of non-perseverative errors significantly higher in the CG than in the FG (p = .026), the other variables (percentage of perseverative errors, number of categories and failures to maintain set) showed no significant differences. In relation to decision-making (IGT), once the rules had been learnt, the FG made fewer advantageous choices than the CG, but these differences were not statistically significant (p = .325). In the FG, pain severity (p = .010) and impact on daily activities (p = .016) interfered with decision-making, unlike anxiety, depression or medication, which did no relate to it. In executive function, pain and impact on daily activities were associated with the percentage of perseverative errors (p = .051) and the number of categories (p = .031), whereas pain severity was related to failures to maintain set (p = .039), indicative of increased distractibility and poor attentional ability. In conclusion, FG showed normal performance in executive functioning and decision-making. Moreover, pain was associated with neuropsychological functioning whereas anxiety, depression and medication were not.

This article presents EHME, the frequency dictionary of Basque structure, an online program that enables researchers in psycholinguistics to extract word and nonword stimuli, based on a broad range of statistics concerning the properties of Basque words. The database consists of 22.7 million tokens, and properties available include morphological structure frequency and word-similarity measures, apart from classical indexes: word frequency, orthographic structure, orthographic similarity, bigram and biphone frequency, and syllable-based measures. Measures are indexed at the lemma, morpheme and word level. We include reliability and validation analysis. The application is freely available, and enables the user to extract words based on concrete statistical criteria1, as well as to obtain statistical characteristics from a list of words2.

Infants’ smiling is considered an expression of affection, and an index of cognitive and socio-emotional development. Despite research advances in this area, there is much to explore on the ontogeny of smiling, its meaning and the context in which it is manifested early in life. This study aimed at: (a) investigating smiling patterns in these different developmental moments in early infancy, (b) analyzing patterns of association between babies’ smiles and their mothers’ affective behaviors, and (c) verifying whether babies can answer contingently, with smiles, to mothers’ affective behaviors. Participants were sixty Brazilian mother-infant dyads. Infants in three age levels (one, three, and five months of age) and their mothers were observed. They were videotaped at home, during 20 minutes in free sessions. The results indicate increase in frequency of infants’ smiling instances across ages (F(2, 59) = 9.18, p < .05), variations in the frequency of maternal behaviors accompanying the variations in infants’ smiling (F(2, 59) = 6.03, p < .05), correlations between infants’ smiling and mothers’ affective behaviors, and contingency between the behaviors of both mothers and infants. It was verified a strong association between mothers’ behavior and their babies’ smiles, emphasizing the importance of affective interactions in early stages of development.