In this article, we study the psychometric properties of a short scale (TRANS-18) which was designed to detect safe behaviors (personal and vehicle-related) and psychophysiological disorders. 244 drivers participated in the study, including drivers of freight transport vehicles (regular, dangerous and special), cranes, and passenger transport (regular transport and chartered coaches), ambulances and taxis. After carrying out an exploratory factor analysis of the scale, the findings show a structure comprised of three factors related to psychophysiological disorders, and to both personal and vehicle-related safety behaviors. Furthermore, these three factors had adequate reliability and all three also showed validity with regard to burnout, fatigue and job tension. In short, this scale may be ideally suited for adequately identifying the safety behaviors and safety problems of transport drivers. Future research could use the TRANS-18 as a screening tool in combination with other instruments.

The purpose of this preliminary study was to describe the quality of life (QOL) and emotional distress during pregnancy and early postpartum, and to examine the ability of psychopathological symptoms to predict QOL at early postpartum.Asample of 75 pregnant women (31 HIV-positive and 44 HIV-negative) was assessed during the second trimester of pregnancy and two to four days postpartum. QOL was assessed with the WHOQOL-Bref. The emotional distress was assessed with the Brief Symptom Inventory, and with the Emotional Assessment Scale. Seropositive women reported increased negative emotional reactivity and lower scores in social relationships and overall QOL during pregnancy than HIV-negative women. Both HIV-positive and HIV-negative women reported better QOL after the birth of their child, when compared with the pregnancy period. Among HIV-positive women, lower anxiety and depressive symptoms during pregnancy were, respectively, significant predictors of better psychological QOL and overall QOL at early postpartum. Less intense somatic symptoms predicted better physical QOL. Longitudinal assessment of QOL and emotional status may provide potentially useful information for tailoring psychological interventions in the maternity care of HIV-infected women, during their transition to motherhood.

The aim of this study was to identify the relations of job demands (work overload) and job resources (social support and autonomy) with subjective job well-being (job satisfaction, positive affects, negative affects), as well as the moderating role of personal resources (psychological flexibility at work) in such relationships. The sample consisted of 4,867 Brazilian workers, of both sexes, with ages ranging from 18 to 67 years. Structural equation modelling showed that the work overload was negatively associated with job satisfaction (β = –.06; p < .001) and positively with negative affects (β = .24; p < .001); autonomy was positively associated with satisfaction (β = .08; p < .001) and negative affects (β = .08; p < .001); social support was positively associated with satisfaction (β = .17; p < .001) and positive affects (β = .20; p < .001), and negatively with negative affects (β = –.21; p < .001); psychological flexibility moderated the relationships of overload with satisfaction (β = .04; p < .05) and negative affects (β = .08; p < .001); autonomy with positive affects (β = –.06; p < .001) and social support with negative affects (β = .08; p < .001). These results are discussed from perspective of a job demands-resources theory, especially with respect to the relevance of personal resources for the promotion of occupational well-being.

Cyberbullying has aroused scientific interest given the impact it has on the lives of young people. The present study proposes to analyze the relationship between self-concept (Self-Description Questionnaire I), academic goals (Achievement Goals Tendencies Questionnaire), and the participation of the roles of victim, bully and bystander in cyberbullying (Cyberbullying. Screening for peer bullying and cyberbullying), by gender and grade. The sample was composed of 548 students (49.8% girls) in 5th and 6th grade of Primary Education (Mage = 10.95, SD = 0.7). Logistic regression analyses showed the explicative role of social self-concept and learning goals in the three roles, highlighting the academic self-concept and achievement goals in the victims, as well as the high social reinforcement goals in bullies and bystanders. This relation varied slightly according to gender and grade, being the motivational orientation towards school achievement a protector of victimization in girls and 6th grade students. The findings are discussed, pointing out their involvement in the development of preventive cyberbullying programs in preadolescence.

Posttraumatic stress related to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and general psychological distress were examined in six cohorts of college students (N=5,412) enrolled at an American public university between Spring 2000 and Fall 2002 some 2,500 miles from New York. Consistent with data from Schuster et al.'s (2001) national survey, which used a very low threshold criterion, our findings revealed that 44% of women and 32% of men experienced at least one symptom of posttraumatic stress 6-17 days after the attacks. In contrast to these results, depression levels showed only small differences, and self-esteem and trait anxiety showed no changes. Findings indicate that 9/11-related stress responses among distant witnesses were very mild, transitory and focused in scope, suggesting resilience with respect to broader psychological and psychopathological reactions. Findings are discussed with respect to the role of physical and psychological proximity on the reactions to traumatic events in the general population.

In order to explore if neuropsychological deficits on visual constructional ability could be related to risk eating behaviors, a total of 102 women were evaluated, 51 of the participants had been formally diagnosed with eating disorders and 51 did not. All participants were given the Eating Attitude Test (EAT-40), The Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure and The Tower of London Task. Results revealed the existence of a deficit on visual integration similar to those observed in other studies with diagnosed patients. The group at risk showed a comparatively reduced ability on the tasks and the control participants' execution was on the average. Findings revealed the need for designing studies to evaluate neuropsychological processes as possible risk factors which predict eating disorders.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the temperament and behavior problems of 32 toddlers born preterm and very low birth weight and 25 toddlers born full-term without medical problems. Mothers completed the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire and the Child Behavior Checklist-1.5–5 for assessing toddler`s temperament and behavior problems, respectively. The results showed that, regarding temperament, toddlers born preterm exhibited higher scores on the temperament dimensions Motor Activation, Perceptual Sensitivity, and High Intensity Pleasure, and lower scores on the temperament dimension Cuddliness than toddlers born full-term. In regard to behavior problems, toddlers born preterm showed higher attention problems scores than the comparison group. These findings indicated that children born preterm presented developmental vulnerabilities in temperament dimensions related to behavior problems at toddlerhood. Early intervention programs for preventing psychological problems in at-risk children, especially those born preterm, could focus on children’s temperament dispositions.

Self-care agency is an important determinant of healthy aging. The Appraisal of Self-care Agency Scale (ASA-R) (Sousa et al., 2010) is one of the main instrument to assess self-care capacity. The objectives of the study were: 1) to adapt and validate ASA-R scale for use in Spanish population; 2) to examine the dimensionality, validity and reliability; 3) and to establish the convergent validity of ASA-R using a self-reported health measure. The ASA-R Scale and the 12-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12) were administered to 488 Spanish seniors aged 65 and over. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to analyze the dimensionality, validity and reliability. Convergent validity was tested by correlating the ASA-R factors with the SF-12 subscales; correlations were significant (p < .005). CFA showed that the ASA-R Three Factor Model fit well to the data, showing satisfactory fit indices, with S-Bχ2 > 0.05 (0.436), RMSEA closer to 0 (0.006), SRMR < 0.08 (0.065), GFI and AGFI close to 1 (0.924 and 0.921), and CFI and NNFI > 0.95 (0.996 and 0.995). The results also demonstrated that ASA-R is a reliable and valid instrument. The ASA-R has demonstrated to be a reliable (CR indices > 0.7) and valid (AVE > 0.5) instrument in measuring self-care agency among Spanish older population.

This study has examined bio-socio-demographic and psychopathological factors probably associated with unhealthy eating patterns among university students and to estimate a multifactorial model following the associated factors by gender. Adjusted odds ratios were calculated to describe associations on basis of Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) stratified by gender in a representative sample of Spanish university students (n = 2551). The high EDI scorers for both sexes presented higher prevalence of dieting, body dissatisfaction, levels of psychopathology and lower self-esteem than the low EDI scorers. The results suggest that older students and higher self-esteem scores present lower scores in the EDI. In the female population, depression, paranoid dimension, dieting and body dissatisfaction were associated with population with unhealthy eating patterns. In the male sample, dieting, body dissatisfaction and interpersonal sensibility were also associated with unhealthy eating patterns. The results corroborate that abnormal eating patterns tend to affect specific vulnerable groups. We do not know the precise mechanisms through which these risk behaviors and attitudes, such as dieting or body dissatisfaction, may facilitate the later development of an eating disorder.

Rumination has a crucial role in the onset, severity and maintenance of depression in adolescent and adult populations. The Ruminative Responses Scale (RRS) is the most widely self-report instrument used to assess individual differences in the tendency to engage in ruminative responses style. This paper aims to test the factor structure of the 10-item RRS and the gender-based measurement invariance, in a community sample of adolescents, using a Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Participants were 542 adolescents (53% females) with a mean age of 14 years old (SD = 1.75) from middle and secondary schools (years of education’s mean = 9.46, SD = 1.60) in Portugal. Results confirm the two-factor structure of the RRS composed by brooding and reflection dimensions (GFI = .93, CFI = .90, TLI = .87, SRMR = .05, RMSEA = .11, 90% C.I. [0.092 to 0.121]) and the invariance across gender (GFI = .91, CFI = .89, TLI = .85, RMSEA = .08, 90% C.I. [0.069 to 0.090], p < .001). RRS and their dimensions presented a good internal reliability (Brooding: α = .80; Reflection: α = .75; RRS total: α = .85). Brooding and reflection dimensions revealed moderate correlations with depression, anxiety and stress symptoms (p < .001). Multiple Regression Analysis through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) showed that brooding is significantly and strongly associated with internalizing symptoms (p < .001). Female adolescents reported more levels of rumination than male adolescents. Overall, these findings support the usefulness of the Portuguese version of RRS and suggest that this short version is an economical, valid and reliable measure to assess ruminative response styles in adolescence.

This study proposes a psychometric approach to assess the General Factor of Personality (GFP) to explain the whole personality. This approach defends the existence of one basic factor that represents the overall personality. The General Factor of Personality Questionnaire (GFPQ) is presented to measure the basic, combined trait of the complete personality. The questionnaire includes 20 items and is constituted by two scales with 10 items each one: the Extraversion Scale (ES) and the Introversion Scale (IS). The GFPQ shows adequate internal consistency and construct validity, while the relationships with the personality factors of other models and with psychopathology are as expected. It correlates positively and significantly with Extraversion (E) and Psychoticism (P), and negatively with Neuroticism (N) of Eysenck's EPQ (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire); it correlates positively and significantly with the Sensation Seeking Scaled (SSS) of Zuckerman, and is inside the expected direction with Sensitivity to Reward (SR) and Sensitivity to Punishment (SP) of the Sensitivity to Punishment and Sensitivity to Reward Questionnaire (SPSRQ), which represent the approach and avoidance trends of behavior, respectively. It not only relates negatively with the personality disorders of the anxiety spectrum, but also with the emotional disorders in relation to anxiety and depression, and it relates positively with the antisocial personality disorder.

This work analyses the evolution of the scientific visibility of the neurophysiologist José Manuel Rodríguez Delgado. It examines the longitudinal evolution from 1955 to 2013 of an article (Delgado, Roberts, & Miller, 1954) studying the neurological basis of learning and motivation and compares it with a coetaneous article (Olds & Milner, 1954) with a similar subject and methodology. Both studies have been essential in Psychology. This work analyses the number of times each article has been cited between 1955–1984 and 1985–2013. The results show that the visibility of James Olds and Peter Milner’s article (expressed in number of citations between 1955–1984 and 1985–2013) has longitudinally increased (p < .001), whereas the number of citations received by José Manuel Rodríguez Delgado et al.’s article has significantly reduced (p < .001). The results are discussed and the low visibility of Delgado’s article is explained through historical and social factors, including the growing concern about compliance with bioethical and research guidelines and the controversial media projection of the Spanish scientist, not by the intrinsic value or the scientific repercussion of the compared articles.

In this paper, the perspective of situated cognition, which gave rise both to the pragmatic theories and the so-called semantic theories of learning and has probably become the most representative standpoint of constructivism, is examined. We consider the claim of situated cognition to provide alternative explanations of the learning phenomenon to those of psychology and, especially, to those of the symbolic perspective, currently predominant in cognitive psychology. The level of analysis of situated cognition (i.e., global interactive systems) is considered an inappropriate approach to the problem of learning. From our analysis, it is concluded that the pragmatic theories and the so-called semantic theories of learning which originated in situated cognition can hardly be considered alternatives to the psychological learning theories, and they are unlikely to add anything of interest to the learning theory or to contribute to the improvement of our knowledge about the learning phenomenon.

The aim of this study is to analyze how the length of time a patient spends in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) affects close relatives, with regard to specific clinical variables of personality, family relationships and fear of death. The study group consisted of 57 relatives of seriously ill patients admitted to the ICU of “Virgen del Rocío” Rehabilitation and Trauma Hospital (Seville, Spain). The instruments applied were: a psychosocial questionnaire, clinical analysis questionnaire, family environment scale and fear of death scale. The relatives of patients admitted to ICU obtained higher scores in hypochondria, suicidal depression, agitation, anxious depression, guilt-resentment, paranoia, psychasthenia, psychological maladjustment and self-expression, and less in fear of their own death, as when compared to interviews with the same relatives 4 years later. The length of time a patient spent in the ICU influenced relatives in some clinical variables of personality, family relationships and fear of death.

Perfectionistic self-presentation defines the attempt at presenting the self as perfect through the public concealment of personal defects and/or through the display of attributes perceived as capable to gather positive attention of others. Although perfectionism has long been considered a central aspect of eating psychopathology mediational studies between this construct and these conditions are scarce. This study aimed at examining the mediational role of body image-related perfectionistic self-presentation in the effects of external shame and internal shame on drive for thinness, in a sample of young women. Results revealed body image-related perfectionistic self-presentation as a significant mediator (p < .05) of the relationships between external and internal shame, and drive for thinness. Furthermore, 86% and 69% of the effects of external shame and internal shame, respectively, were explained by their indirect effects through body image-related perfectionistic self-presentation on drive for thinness (95% CI). These results highlight that the control over eating may emerge as a maladaptive strategy to deal with shame when mediated by an endorsement in the belief that presenting a perfect body image is crucial to be accepted and valued by others. Study findings suggest that this perfectionistic strategy should be targeted while treating eating psychopathology.

Current knowledge on the neuronal substrates of Pavlovian conditioning in animals and man is briefly reviewed. First, work on conditioning in aplysia, that has showed amplified pre-synaptic facilitation as the basic mechanism of associative learning, is summarized. Then, two exemplars of associative learning in vertebrates, fear conditioning in rodents and eyelid conditioning in rabbits, are described and research into its neuronal substrates discussed. Research showing the role of the amygdala in fear conditioning and of the cerebellum in eyelid conditioning is reviewed, both at the circuit and cellular plasticity levels. Special attention is given to the parallelism suggested by this research between the neuronal mechanisms of conditioning and the principles of formal learning theory. Finally, recent evidence showing a similar role of the amygdala and of the cerebellum in human Pavlovian conditioning is discussed.

The main aims of this study were, first to analyze the partial effects of specific mechanisms of moral disengagement (MMD) on different manifestations of general aggression and dating violence (DV) in adolescents and youths; second, to explore the moderating effects of gender and age on these relations. Moral disengagement, and different forms of aggression and DV, were evaluated in a sample of 424 participants (61.1% women) aged 15 to 25 years (M = 18.80; SD = 2.69). Pearson correlations and different hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses were conducted. All regressions were controlled by social desirability. MMD contributed to physical aggression with a medium effect size (R2 = .22) and verbal aggression with a small effect size (R2 = .10). Conversely, MMD did not appear to clearly contribute to DV. In conclusion, depersonalization and rationalization were the most important MMD for physical aggression, rationalization for verbal aggression, and irresponsibility for verbal-emotional violence in dating relationships. Moreover, the relationships between physical aggression and rationalization mechanism were significantly moderated by gender: there appears to be a stronger relationship between rationalization and physical aggression in boys than in girls. Moderating effects of age on these relations were not found.

This article presents a study whose objective was to identify certain personal and institutional variables that are associated with academic achievement among Spanish, secondary school students, and to analyze their influence on the progress of those students over the course of that stage of their education. In order to do this, a longitudinal, multi-level study was conducted in which a total of 965 students and 27 different schools were evaluated in Language, Math and Social Science at three different times (beginning, middle and end of the period). The results show progress in all the schools and in all areas. As for the personal, student variables, the longitudinal, HLM analyses confirmed the importance of sex and sociocultural background and, distinguishing it from other studies, also the predictive capacity of meta-cognitive abilities and learning strategies on success in school. On the institutional level, the school climate and teachers' expectations of their students were the most relevant of the variables studied. The size of the school, the percentage of students who repeat grades, and the leadership of the administration also explained a portion of the variance in some areas.

This study investigates the job demands-resources (JD-R) model in relation to work motivation in a self-determination theory (SDT) perspective, with the purpose of developing a model where social-contextual factors are seen in relation to psychological needs in order to explain autonomous work motivation and, in turn, self-reported work performance and somatic symptom burden. SEM-analyses of cross-sectional survey data including 405 waiters/waitresses in Norway were conducted to evaluate the hypothesized model. Results indicate that different job resources have different relations to psychological need satisfaction, and that certain types of job demands (i.e., job challenges) actually may enhance satisfaction of specific psychological needs. In particular, task autonomy had a positive relation to autonomy satisfaction (p < .001) and to competence satisfaction (p < .05), positive feedback had a positive relation to autonomy-, competence-, and relatedness satisfaction (p < .001), and workload had a positive relation to competence satisfaction (p < .001). Furthermore, psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness positively related to autonomous work motivation and, in turn, positively to work performance and negatively to somatic symptom burden (p < .001). Indirect relations were also detected between the job characteristics and autonomous work motivation and between the basic needs and work performance (p < .05). Hence, when explaining autonomous work motivation and work outcomes, it is important to distinguish between different job demands and job resources, as well as among the three psychological needs.

The objective was evaluating the psychometric properties of the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire-3 (SATAQ–3) among Brazilian young adults of both genders. The sample was composed by 506 undergraduate students (295 females and 211 males), aged between 17 and 29 years old. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used for construct validity (N = 506). Correlations between the SATAQ–3 scores and those of the Tripartite Influence Scale (TIS) and Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ) were used for convergent validity. Reliability was assessed through internal consistency (α) and reproducibility (test-retest) through comparison of the means obtained at two different time points and through intra-class correlation. The scale presented a factor structure composed of five factors, replicated in the confirmatory factor analysis with satisfactory values for the measurements of adjustment to the model. Correlations with the BSQ and TIS scores were rho = .52 and rho = –.35, respectively. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were satisfactory, and their stability was demonstrated. Brazilian SATAQ–3 had good validity and reproducibility, being indicated for use in samples of Brazilian youths.