Executive Functions (EF) exercise control over an individual’s conduct and thinking through a set of functionally independent processes, among which are cognitive flexibility (reactive and spontaneous), working memory and planning. The development patterns of these components appear to have stages of acceleration and deceleration during childhood. Studies analyzing their development in Spanish-speaking children were not found in our area. Therefore, this study will analyze the development patterns of the cited executive functions with the objective of establishing relationships and comparisons, and identifying the stages of acceleration and stagnation for each component. The study’s sample consists of 274 schoolchildren between the ages of 6 and 8 (119 in first grade, 61 in second grade and 94 in third grade). Participants were evaluated using the following instruments from the Neuropsychological Assessment of Children test battery (known by the acronym ENI in Spanish): Verbal Fluency (semantic and phonemic); Cognitive Flexibility; Mexican Pyramid; and Backward Digit Span. Three different development patterns were detected, as well as different interactions between the executive components. Additionally, three empirical types were established based on the patterns and relationships between components.

This article describes the development and validation of a new instrument, the scale (SCAP) which measures community participation (CP) and socio-political participation (SPP). The sample consists of 756 participants in Málaga, residents whose average age is 38.78 years old (SD = 13.96) and of whom 58.5% are women. The results endorse the psychometric qualities of the instrument. We present descriptive analysis of the items, the dimensionality of the scale and its internal consistency. The external evidence of validity shows positive and statistically significant correlations with sense of community and empowerment, variables theoretically related to participation. A confirmatory factor analysis confirms the two-dimensional structure (CP and SPP). Further analysis show a higher CP in women. This instrument extends the quantitative research on citizen participation.

Knowledge about users interacting with Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) is fundamental in order to prevent their potential negative effects on behavior. For this reason, the present study analyzed the relationship between styles of play and motivations. An online questionnaire asking for socio-demographic details, playing style, characteristics of the game played and motivations for playing, was answered by 430 Spanish-speaking MMORPG players (45.1% males). The identified profile for players, far away from the stereotype of an adolescent, consisted in a person who mainly plays on PvP (Player versus Player) servers, choosing the type of game according to his experience. Regarding motivations, they were interested in relating with other players through the game (Socialization), in discovering the game’s possibilities and development of its adventures (Exploration), to a lesser extent in leadership and prestige (Achievement) and, lastly, identification with an avatar and escape from reality (Dissociation). Although part of the reason for playing was escapism and/or stress relief, the main motivation had a social nature. We conclude that MMORPG offer an attractive environment for a broad spectrum of people, and we have not been able to confirm the stereotype of a loner avoiding reality, taking refuge in games.

This study focuses on 606 Brazilian women’s cultural models regarding their relation with their family, as evaluated by the Family Allocentrism Idiocentrism Scale (FAS). The scale was translated into Portuguese, submitted to back-translation and adapted. Analyses of the scale’s structure indicated that the best fit model involves two independent factors. Univariate GLM (General Linear Model) analyses showed that the place where mothers were raised presented a significant effect on their scores on factor 1 (normative familial allocentrism). Mothers raised on rural areas have higher scores on this factor, than the ones raised on urban areas. The opposite occurred with factor 2 (relational familial allocentrism). The set of evidences indicate that the FAS may be a bi-dimensional measure. One dimension would be part of a more stable and basic model of relation to family, constructed during development. The second dimension would be related to more recent experiences and would be more readily affected by socio-cultural context changes, including in acculturation processes.

Criticism directed by caregivers towards a family member with schizophrenia, both from the perspective of the patient and of the caregiver, predicts relapse, although both perspectives differ. This study aims to verify if the same applies to a Mediterranean sample, where criticism is not the main attitude of high expressed emotion families. The Camberwell Family Interview was applied to assess the family’s perspective, and the Perceived Criticism and the Family Emotional Involvement and Criticism Scales were used to assess the patients’ perspective, in 21 dyads. The association between both perspectives and psychotic symptoms was also examined. Results replicated those of previous studies in other countries, revealing that the perspectives on Criticism of patients and families do not match. The fact that family members also presented positive attitudes towards the patient did not cushion the patient’s perceived criticism. Thus, it seems that families considered to be critical may not be perceived as such by the patients. Furthermore, only the warmth from the family’s perspective correlated with the symptoms: positive affect proved to be more relevant than negative affect. Therefore, the patients’ subjective assessments and family warmth should be included in clinical and research proposals.

Using a conditioned suppression task, we examined the minimal conditions to establish context conditioning as induced by unpredictability of an unconditioned stimulus (US). We investigated whether a biologically significant US is necessary to produce such context conditioning effects. In this between-subjects experiment, we manipulated the nature of the US and US-unpredictability. In the Paired condition, the conditioned stimulus (CS) was always followed by the US, whereas in the Unpaired condition, the CS and the US were presented explicitly unpaired, that is, the CS was never followed by the US. Half of the participants received an aversive, biologically significant human scream, and the other half received a more neutral, biologically non-significant sound as US. Results show more contextual suppression in the Unpaired condition than in the Paired condition. We conclude that in an expectancy-based conditioning task, US-unpredictability, but not a biologically potent US, is crucial to establish context conditioning.

One of the most widely used scales for the evaluation of stress is the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and it has been adapted into different languages. However, few studies have presented normative data from large samples, and there do not appear to be any studies of the PSS that provide normative data based on large samples for Mexico. Thus, the goal of this study was to provide normative data regarding gender and different age groups for a sample of 1990 Mexican subjects to validate the factor structure of the construct for this sample. The analysis of the 10- and 14-item versions of the PSS revealed that the scale had adequate reliability and that the factor structure was consistent with previous studies. With respect to the normative data, the means of the different groups ranged from 20.93 to 25.63 for the PSS14 and from 14.52 to 17.73 for the PSS10. We propose that scores within one standard deviation of these means be used as reference values for each group.

Functional impairment scales are important to assess Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) patients. The present study aims to evaluate the reliability, internal consistency, validity and factorial structure of the Disability Profile/Clinician-Rate (DP) scale, as well as to present an interview-guide to support its application by clinicians. University students (n = 173) of both genders participated in the study (SAD = 84 and Non-SAD = 89), with ages ranging between 17 and 35 years, systematically diagnosed. The SAD group presented more difficulties when compared to the Non-SAD group. The DP presented, for the SAD group, internal consistency of 0.68 (lifetime) and 0.67 (last two weeks). Inter-rater reliability varied from 0.75 to 0.93. Two factors were extracted and the correlation among such factors and the Social Phobia Inventory subscales presented association between fear and avoidance symptoms and the functional impairments. The scale presents good psychometric properties and can contribute to the assessment of functional impairments.

The aim of this study was to analyze the differences in psychosocial risk variables for HIV as a function of sexual experience in an adolescent population. The study sample consisted of 846 adolescents of both sexes aged between 14 and 19 years. Participants responded to several questionnaires that assessed four psychosocial variables related to risk sexual behavior for HIV infection: 1) perception of peer group norms, 2) condom use self-efficacy, 3) attitudes towards condom use and 4) parental communication about sexuality, STIs, HIV and pregnancy. Participants in both groups with sexual experience (with and without penetration) reported better communication with their mothers on sexuality and scored higher in positive attitudes towards condom use than those in the group without sexual experience. The sexual experience with penetration group perceived more negative peer group norms related to safe sexual behavior than the group without sexual experience; the group without sexual experience had a higher perception of condom use self-efficacy than the sexual experience with penetration group.

The present paper examined the role of perceived emotional intelligence-EI- (measured by adaptations of the Trait Meta-Mood Scale - TMMS, Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, & Palfai, 1995) as a predictor of life satisfaction and mental health. We explored the unique contribution of EI dimensions (Attention, Clarity and Repair) on individuals’ psychological well-being, after controlling for the influence of general self-efficacy and socio-demographic variables (age, gender and culture). Data was collected from a sample of 1078 Spanish, Mexican, Portuguese and Brazilian undergraduate students (Mage = 22.98; SD = 6.73) and analyzed using hierarchical multiple regressions. Results indicated that overall EI dimensions (especially Clarity and Repair) accounted for unique variance on psychological well-being above and beyond general self-efficacy and socio-demographic characteristics. These findings provide additional support for the validity of perceived EI, and suggests that EI components contribute to important well-being criteria independently from well-known constructs such as self-efficacy.

Morphemes facilitate visual word recognition, leading to greater accuracy and fluency in reading morphologically complex words. In children with dyslexia, the morphological structure might be useful to reduce difficulties caused by phonological deficits. The aim of this study was to determine whether Spanish-speaking children with dyslexia benefit from morphemes when reading. A group of children with dyslexia of different ages (7 to 10 years) and a group of children without reading disabilities, matched on chronological age and gender, participated in a task of reading isolated words and pseudowords in which morphological complexity was manipulated. Half of the stimuli were morphologically simple and half morphologically complex. Children with dyslexia benefit from morphology since they have better performance with the morphologically complex stimuli. These results indicate that they are able to develop representations of units larger than the grapheme, what suggests that Spanish-speaking children with dyslexia use the morphological structure to overcome their difficulties in phonological recoding. These results have important implications for the rehabilitation of children with dyslexia.

The assessment of facial expression is an important aspect of a clinical neurological examination, both as an indicator of a mood disorder and as a sign of neurological damage. To date, although studies have been conducted on certain psychosocial aspects of myasthenia, such as quality of life and anxiety, and on neuropsychological aspects such as memory, no studies have directly assessed facial emotion recognition accuracy. The aim of this study was to assess the facial emotion recognition accuracy (fear, surprise, sadness, happiness, anger, and disgust), empathy, and reaction time of patients with myasthenia. Thirty-five patients with myasthenia and 36 healthy controls were tested for their ability to differentiate emotional facial expressions. Participants were matched with respect to age, gender, and education level. Their ability to differentiate emotional facial expressions was evaluated using the computer-based program Feel Test. The data showed that myasthenic patients scored significantly lower (p < 0.05) than healthy controls in the total Feel score, fear, surprise, and higher reaction time. The findings suggest that the ability to recognize facial affect may be reduced in individuals with myasthenia.

This study investigated how extrafoveally seen smiles influence the viewers’ perception of non-happy eyes in a face. A smiling mouth appeared in composite faces with incongruent (angry, fearful, neutral, etc.) eyes, thus producing blended expressions, or they appeared in intact faces with genuine expressions. Overt attention to the eye region was spatially cued, foveal vision of the mouth was blocked by gaze-contingent masking, and the distance between the eyes and the mouth was varied. Participants evaluated whether the eyes were happy or not. Results indicated that the same non-happy eyes were more likely to be judged as happy, and more slowly to be judged as not happy, in presence more than in absence of a smile. As (a) the smiling mouth was highly salient regardless of type of eyes, (b) the influence on the eyes increased gradually as a function of eye-mouth proximity, and (c) the effect occurred in the absence of fixations on the mouth, we conclude that a salient smile radiates outwards to other face regions through a projection mechanism, thus making the eye expression look happy.

This study examines the relationships between components of organizational safety climate, including employee attitudes to organizational safety issues; perceptions of the physical working environment, and evaluations of worker engagement with safety issues; and relates these to self-reported levels of safety behavior. It attempts to explore the relationships between these variables in 1189 workers across 78 work groups in a large transportation organization. Evaluations of safety climate, the working environment and worker engagement, as well as safe behaviors, were collected using a self report questionnaire. The multilevel analysis showed that both levels of evaluation (the work group and the individual), and some cross-level interactions, were significant in explaining safe behaviors. Analyses revealed that a number of variables, at both levels, were associated with worker engagement and safe behaviors. The results suggest that, while individual evaluations of safety issues are important, there is also a role for the fostering of collective safety climates in encouraging safe behaviors and therefore reducing accidents.

Three studies aimed at developing the Spanish version of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA; Armsden & Greenberg, 1987) and at analyzing its factor structure are reported. In Study 1, the Spanish translation of items and their content analysis was carried out via cognitive interviews. In Study 2, the three-factor structure proposed by authors was tested in a sample of 417 adolescents (270 girls and 147 boys) using confirmatory analysis, and indexes showed a suboptimal fit. A principal component analysis yielded one-dimensional structures in father, mother and peer versions, explaining 54.3%, 50.8%, and 50.8% of the variance respectively. On the basis of the factor loadings and of the item-total correlations, a shortened version of the inventory was created. Convergent validity was tested with measures of family climate, parenting socialization and self-esteem. In Study 3, the one-dimension structure was confirmed in a new sample of 604 adolescents (335 girls and 269 boys). Based on all factor analyses and convergent validity indices obtained, we conclude that the Spanish IPPA questionnaire reliably and validly assesses adolescent attachment using only a dimension of attachment security.

This study investigates if perceived self-efficacy during an emergency situation has a protective role in the development of posttraumatic stress symptoms among Italian and Spanish survivors of several emergency situations. We explored the impact of self-efficacy in a multiple regression model including other predictors of posttraumatic stress symptoms, such as emergency prevention knowledge; trust in emergency services; risk perception of becoming a victim of an emergency situation; and conscious and active behaviors in comparison with no conscious and no active behavior during the emergency. We carried out a retrospective study recruiting 214 participants who reported their experience as victims of one specific emergency event. Results showed that survivors who perceived themselves as more self-efficacious during the traumatic event had less posttraumatic stress symptoms. In contrast, female gender, more self-threat perception and higher trauma severity were associated with more symptoms. Findings contribute to better understand human behavior in emergency situations and evidence the protective role of perceived self-efficacy beliefs among survivors of emergency situations.

This study aimed to examine how emotional and behavioral problems of parents and children and the characteristics of family relationships can be predictors of internalizing symptoms manifested by children after one year. This was a quantitative research study, of the longitudinal type, with a one year interval between the first and second evaluation. Participants were 139 adolescents, and their parents, with ages ranged from 11 to 16 years (Mage = 12.90, SD = 1.07). The instruments used were: a Socio-Demographic Data Sheet, Youth Self-Report of 11 to 18 years old (YSR), Adult Self-Report of 18 to 59 years old (ASR), Familiogram (FG), the Family Climate Inventory (FCI) and Inventory of Stressful Events in Adolescence (ISEA). Results indicated that family relationships did not have a significant explanatory power in relation to internalizing symptoms of the adolescent after a year. Based on this study, it is possible to think that during adolescence, the power of the family to influence becomes more restricted in comparison with social and peer influence.

This study is about the validity and item analysis for the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), respectively through the Exploratory Factor Analysis (principal components method) and the Partial Credit Model (PCM). The scale has been largely used in areas ranging from clinical to social psychology since its release in 1988 by Watson, Clark, and Tellegen. In order to assess validity and item properties (Item Response Theory paradigm), this is study administered PANAS to 354 respondents, 115 male and 239 female subjects, with an average age of 29.5 (SD = 10,18). The results show PANAS’s excellent psychometric properties, with consistent dimensions and reliable item functioning, considering the Rasch measurement paradigm expressed in the PCM as an Item Response Theory model for polytomous data. The study considers important cultural issues and the results support more cautious translations for scales as well as further studies concerned with cross-cultural differences on the perception of affect states.

The Eating Attitudes Test-40 (EAT-40; Garner & Garfinkel, 1979) is one of the most widely used measures in the field of eating disorders (ED). The factor structure of the EAT-40, as well as the optimal cut-off score to identify subjects with ED, are subjects of debate. Both controversial issues are addressed in the present study. Participants were 95 clinical females meeting DSM-IV-R criteria for ED and 89 females without ED. The results supported a unidimensional structure of the EAT-40 items scores. The general factor accounted for a high percentage (50.63%) of the variance in EAT-40 total scores. The questionnaire proved to have good internal consistency and test–retest reliability. Clinical participants displayed higher mean scores than normal subjects in the EAT-40. Further, participants meeting DSM-IV-R criteria for ED differed significantly from “symptomatic” and “asymptomatic” participants. Correlations with the BULIT-R and the EDI-II scores supported the convergent validity of the questionnaire. The EAT-40 also demonstrated good specificity (94.38%) and sensitivity (93.68%) to detect ED when a cut-off score of 27 was used to discriminate between subjects with and without ED. The implications of these findings for the conceptualization and the assessment of ED are discussed.

The Rey Auditory-Verbal Learning Test is an easy to administer test that assesses many memory domains and is, therefore, widely used in the area of clinical neuropsychology. The purpose of this study was to provide normative data for an elderly population living in Spain. The sample of this study was comprised of 156 volunteers over 60 years of age, which were grouped into six different age groups. These groups comprised of 10 participants between the ages of 61and 65 in the first group, 23 participants (66–70) in the second, 28 participants (71–75) in the third, 35 participants (76–80) in the fourth, 32 participants (81–85)in the fifth and 28 participants (86–95) in the sixth group. Demographic data were collected and means, deviations, and ranges of all the measures were evaluated. Normative data were calculated from the percentiles, and then converted into age-corrected scaled scores with a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of 3.