Teaching efficacy beliefs have attracted researchers' attention in recent decades because of its close association with and potential impact on the implementation of new ideas and skills in education. In the present study, we have explored the psychometric properties and construct validity of the Turkish adaptation of the Mathematics Teacher Efficacy Belief Instrument developed by Enochs, Smith, & Huinker (2000) for in-service mathematics teachers. The instrument distinguishes between two dimensions of efficacy beliefs for mathematics teachers: personal mathematics teaching efficacy and mathematics teaching outcome expectancy. The sample consisted of 1355 in-service elementary school teachers and middle school mathematics teachers from 368 schools. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis revealed a two-factor structure similar to that found in other studies. Also, scores from the two subscales indicated acceptable internal consistency.

To date, the statistical software designed for assessing differential item functioning (DIF) with Mantel-Haenszel procedures has employed the following statistics: the Mantel-Haenszel chi-square statistic, the generalized Mantel-Haenszel test and the Mantel test. These statistics permit detecting DIF in dichotomous and polytomous items, although they limit the analysis to two groups. On the contrary, this article describes a new approach (and the related software) that, using the generalized Mantel-Haenszel statistic proposed by Landis, Heyman, and Koch (1978), permits DIF assessment in multiple groups, both for dichotomous and polytomous items. The program is free of charge and is available in the following languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.

The aim of this study is twofold. First, to assess the level of agreement between radiographic damage and functional disability in older people with osteoarthritis. And second, to assess the role of coping skills and sensory pain parameters as sources of disagreement between these variables. To achieve this objective we assess, in a sample of 104 older people with osteoarthritis, the following variables: functional capacity, radiographic damage, pain coping strategies, pain intensity, pain frequency and pain duration. The results show a non-linear relationship between radiographic damage and functional disability, modified by the levels of the two variables. There was maximum agreement between low levels of radiographic damage and of functional impairment, whilst agreement decreased for moderate and high levels of radiographic damage. Certain coping strategies may help to explain this disparity.

Analyze whether the content of three moral messages (deontological, ethical utilitarianism, ethical virtue) and a control message differentially affect the probability of engaging in four behaviors: Washing their hands, participating in public gatherings, staying at home/avoiding social contact, and forwarding the message to inform more people. In our study, the sender of the message is a university professor. These variables are measured in terms of their behavioral intentions and others’ behavioral intentions (beliefs about others’ behavior). Randomized Controlled Trial. Our study includes the analysis of the possible moderating effect of the country of residence (Spain n = 1,122, Chile n = 1,107, and Colombia n = 1,433). The message with content referring to ethical virtue and staying at home obtains statistically significant lower scores on the probability of carrying out public health behaviors and sharing the message received. Regarding beliefs about the behavior of others, the message of ethical virtue has the same negative effect, but only on the likelihood of other people washing their hands, staying at home, and sharing the public health message. Institutional messages aimed at promoting public health behaviors are necessary in a pandemic situation. Our recommendation is to use deontological and utilitarian, or non-moral, content.

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.

The relationship between perceived loss of control and passivity in social activities in a non-handicapped institutionalized elderly population was assessed. Perceived loss of control was assessed from three different types of expectancies: low action-outcome expectancies, high situation-outcome expectancies, and low efficacy expectancies. Passivity scores were reported by the staff. The effect of these three types of expectancies on passivity was analyzed in terms of motivation and volition, which were treated as mediating variables. Overall analysis of the structural equations, as well as partial hierarchical regression analyses, showed that efficacy expectancies were good predictors of passivity, but this was not the case for the action-outcome and situation-outcome expectancies. These results lend more support to a volitional rather than to a motivational interpretation of the effect of control on passivity. The implications of these results for intervention and for a differentiated conception of expectancies are discussed.

In this work, we present a new way of understanding psychology, which emerges as a result of relating it to the three principles of the theory of fashion of Gilles Lipovetsky: “the principle of the ephemeral,” “the principle of the marginal differentiation of individuals,” and “the principle of seduction.” We relate the first principle to the plurality of the diverse and changing “schools and systems” that have existed throughout the history of psychology. We apply the second to the figure of the psychologist, considered individually, revealing his or her leading role in the generation of the changing plurality of the systems. By means of the third principle, we point up that the diverse psychologies are forms of seduction. We conclude by stating that psychology has the form of fashion and we analyze how this form can help us to better understand it.

Building upon existing research conducted in face-to-face universities, our research explored whether, in the context of a distance learning institution, the positive association between subjective socioeconomic status and academic performance can be explained by students’ sense of belonging. To that end, we conducted a three-wave correlational study with 2,261 students enrolled in Social Psychology in a distance learning university. At the start of the academic year, we measured participants’ subjective socioeconomic status relative to other students alongside their initial expectations in terms of time investment and grades and other relevant covariates. Midway through the course, we assessed their sense of belonging to the university and, at the end, we recorded their grades. Results suggested that sense of belonging potentially serves as a mediating factor in the positive relationship between subjective socioeconomic status and grades even after accounting for variables like initial grade expectations, time commitment, gender, age, and employment situation. These findings emphasize the pivotal role of students’ psychological connection to the university in shaping their academic achievement, even within the expanding landscape of distance education.

The aim of this study was to create an explanatory model that allows analyzing the predictive power of a set of variables related to political knowledge; more specifically, to analyze the relationship between the education level of young adults and the variables, interest in politics and internal political efficacy. We also analyzed the combined relationship between these variables, together with age, and political knowledge. We worked with a sample group of 280 young adults between the ages of 18-30 from the city of Córdoba (Argentina). The data was subjected to a structural equation modelling SEM analysis, which allowed for the corroboration of the following hypotheses: the higher the education level, the more the interest in politics; the higher the education level, the better the perception of internal political efficacy; the higher the education level, the more the political knowledge; the more the interest in politics, the more the political knowledge; and the better the perception of internal political efficacy, the more interest in politics. Moreover, the following hypotheses could not be verified: the older an individual, the more the political knowledge; and the better the perception of internal political efficacy, the more the political knowledge. The model obtained allows for discussion of the explanatory value of these socio-cognitive variables.

The focal article by Griep and colleagues raises some highly important issues and it is timely to further advance organizational behavior (OB) and work and organizational psychology (WOP). It comes at the right time because the last two decades can be characterized by two opposing trends. On the one hand, there have been exciting developments in statistical methods to appropriately model time in statistical analyses, while on the other hand, the vast majority of studies have not considered time in analyses, or have not done so appropriately. For the sake of brevity, I use ‘temporal design’ and ‘temporal analysis’ as umbrella terms. As Griep et al. succinctly claim, many opportunities for better temporal designs and temporal analyses have been missed and there is a strong need to do better in the future. In this commentary, I add to some of the important issues raised and call for changes in future research.

In this study, we sought to extend the research on self-determination, future orientation, and personal identity construction by integrating the theories on self-determination and future orientation to provide a conceptual framework for understanding the relations between personal identity and the following individual characteristics: Hope, optimism, awareness of self, and perceived choice. 191 university students in China responded surveys in hardcopies on an individual basis. Our SEM results revealed that proximal future orientation influenced the mechanisms through which distal psychological traits affected identity construction. Specifically, hope mediated the effects of self-awareness on the participants’ personal identity ratings (b = .45, p < .05). Although optimism was related to both awareness of self and perceived choice, it was not significantly related to personal identity. This study suggested an extended framework through which we could understand how the interaction between future orientation and self-determination can predict personal identity. The findings have significant implications for interventions in educational settings.

Research into lexical processes shows that frequency and phonological similarity (neighborhood density) affect word processing and retrieval. Previous studies on inflectional morphology have examined the influence of frequency of occurrence in speech production on the inflectional verb paradigm in English. Limited work has been done to examine the influence of phonological similarity in languages with a more complex morphological system than English. The present study examined the influence of neighborhood density on the processing of Spanish Preterite regular and irregular verbs as produced by thirty native speakers of Spanish. The results of a naming task showed that regular verbs were processed faster and more accurately than irregular ones. Similar to what has been observed in English, a facilitative effect of neighborhood density for –ir verbs was observed in both regular and irregular verbs, such that –ir verbs with dense neighborhoods were produced faster and more accurately than –ir verbs with sparse neighborhoods. However, no neighborhood density effects were observed for –ar verbs (regular and irregular) in reaction times and accuracy rates. Thus, the activation of a specific –ir verb was facilitated by similar sounding verbs regardless of being regular and irregular. Implications for models of morphology language processing are discussed.

This experiment compares the yes-no and forced recognition tests as methods of measuring familiarity. Participants faced a phase of 3 study-test recognition trials in which they studied words using all the letters of the alphabet (overlapping condition, O), and an additional phase in which targets and lures did not share any letters (non-overlapping condition, NO). Finally, subjects performed a forced-choice task in which they had to choose one of two new words, each from one of the subsets (Parkin et al., 2001). Results in the NO condition were better than in the O condition in the yes-no recognition test, while the forced-choice rate was significantly higher than .50, showing their sensitivity to familiarity. When the letter set of the words for study in the third list of the NO condition was switched, the difference between NO and O conditions disappeared in yes-no test, while the force-choice rate was not higher than .50. We conclude that both the yes-no test and the forced-choice test are valid and equivalent measures of familiarity under the right conditions.

Previous research on electrodermal conditioning suggests that the conditioned diminution of the unconditioned response (UR) has an associative basis. The aim of this experiment was to test whether this phenomenon also occurs in heart rate (HR) classical conditioning. For this purpose, a differential classical conditioning was performed. The conditioned stimuli (CSs) were geometrical shapes (the CS+ was a square and the CS− was a triangle) displayed on a computer screen and a burst of white noise was used as unconditioned stimulus (US). For analysis of the conditioned response (CR) components, an interval between CS+ and US of 8 seconds was used. After the acquisition phase, participants were tested using trials with the US preceded either by a CS+, a CS−, or a neutral stimulus (a circle). The results showed conditioned diminution of the UR and suggest that the second heart rate deceleration component (D2) is responsible for the occurrence of this phenomenon.

The purpose of the study was to confirm a model which proposed two basic dimensions in the subjective experience of guilt, one anxious-aggressive and the other empathic, as well as another dimension associated but not intrinsic to it, namely, the associated negative emotions dimension. Participants were 360 adolescents, young adults and adults of both sexes. They were asked to relate one of the situations that most frequently caused them to experience feelings of guilt and to specify its intensity and that of 9 other emotions that they may have experienced, to a greater or lesser extent, at the same time on a 7-point scale. The proposed model was shown to adequately fit the data and to be better than other alternative nested models. This result supports the views of both Freud and Hoffman regarding the nature of guilt, contradictory only at a first glance.

The Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ, Blatt, D’Afflitti, & Quinlan, 1976, 1979), a self-report measure used in personality research, assesses the constructs of Dependency and Self-Criticism as vulnerability factors in depression (Blatt, 1974, 1990, 2004) and psychopathology more generally (Blatt, 2008; Blatt & Shichman, 1983). This study establishes a Portuguese version of the DEQ with six samples: a bilingual sample to test the measurement equivalence of the Portuguese DEQ, and two college student samples, two community samples and a clinical sample, to test the reliability, factor structure and criterion, convergent and predictive validity of this translation of the DEQ. A measure of depression (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale; CES-D; Radloff, 1977) and of general psychopathology (Brief Symptom Inventory; BSI; Derogatis, 1993) evaluated the convergent validity of the DEQ. Findings indicate satisfactory reliability and validity of the Portuguese DEQ, and the value of the DEQ for investigating the relationship between personality and depression and between personality and psychopathology more generally. It is important to note, however, that these conclusions are based on a limited clinical sample. Additional reliability and validity data are needed with a larger clinical sample.

Understanding which factors are related to different kinds of aggressive behaviors in adolescents might help to improve violence-prevention programs for schools and families. Although some studies show that adolescents who are less psychologically mature tend to display more behavioral problems, few studies have been performed on the relationship between aggressive behavior and psychological maturity in adolescence, and no studies have focused specifically on indirect aggression. For this reason, the current research tests the role of psychological maturity in direct and indirect aggressiveness in a sample of 193 Spanish adolescents (49% boys and 51% girls) between 14 and 18 years old (M = 16.1, SD = 1.18). The results show that psychological maturity is related to both kinds of aggressiveness. In fact, less mature adolescents tend to show higher levels of direct aggression (r = –.22, p < .01) and indirect aggression (r = –.44, p < .01). More specifically, the dimensions of psychological maturity most related to aggressiveness are self-reliance and identity: self-reliance is the main predictor of indirect aggression (p < .01) and identity is the main predictor of direct aggression (p < .01). Moreover, overall psychological maturity is more related to indirect aggression in men than in women (p < .05), so the increase in psychological maturity implies a greater decrease of indirect aggression in men.

This study explores the effects of intergroup vicarious ostracism on individual prejudicial attributions and aggressive intentions. It takes Tibetan and Hui college students in northwestern China as participants. Study 1 and Study 2 explore the difference in observers' prejudicial attributions and aggressive intentions, respectively, when the group members who experienced ostracism (Tibetan college students) observed an in-group member being ostracized by out-group members versus an in-group member being ostracized by in-group members. Results show that those in-group participants, i.e., the Tibetan college students, who observed an in-group member being ostracized by out-group members, showed much higher prejudicial attributions, F(1, 106) = 19.65, p < .001, ηp2 = .156, and aggressive intentions, F(1, 108) = 10.51, p = .002, ηp2 = .089, toward ostracizers than those who observed an in-group member being ostracized by in-group members. In Study 3, Hui college students were recruited as participants to further test the results of Study 1 and Study 2. In addition, we also found that under the out-group conditions, prejudicial attribution mediates the effects of inclusionary status on aggressive intentions (95% bias-corrected confidence interval did not include zero; 95% CI [0.15, 0.69]). This study shows that ostracizers’ group membership could affect observers' prejudicial attributions and their aggressive intentions toward the ostracizers.

The aim of this research was to study the learning process using an objective and computerized task. The performance of 466 schoolchildren aged between 6 and 11 in a category learning task, the Category Learning Test (CLT), was examined. The results showed evidence of category learning throughout the trials for the whole sample, F(7, 469) = 29.979, p <.001. In addition, categorization performance improved with age, H(2) = 48.475, p <.001. However, there were old children that struggled with the task and young children that performed very well. The ability to learn the categories was related to the children’s behavior when trying to solve the task: the response speed (r = –.217, p <.01) and the organization index (r = .247, p <.01). Nevertheless, performance in the task and academic marks were not related. We discuss the impact of these findings on the promotion and improvement of learning in schools: an intervention to promote slowness and organization might help some children to learn.

Humans exhibit extensive large-scale cooperation, of a form unprecedented in the natural world. Here I suggest that this cooperation arises in our species alone because of our uniquely potent capacities for social learning, imitation and teaching, combined with the co-evolutionary feedbacks that these capabilities have generated on the human mind. Culture took human populations down evolutionary pathways not available to non-cultural species, either by creating conditions that promoted established cooperative mechanisms, such as indirect reciprocity and mutualism, or by generating novel cooperative mechanisms not seen in other taxa, such as cultural group selection. In the process, gene-culture co-evolution seemingly generated an evolved psychology, comprising an enhanced ability and motivation to learn, teach, communicate through language, imitate and emulate, as well as predispositions to docility, social tolerance, and the sharing of goals, intentions and attention. This evolved psychology is entirely different from that observed in any other animal, or that could have evolved through conventional selection on genes alone.