Psychometric properties of the questionnaire of sociocultural influences on the aesthetic body shape model (CIMEC-26) in female Spanish adolescents

The purpose of the present study was to analyse the psychometric properties of the 'Questionnaire of Sociocultural Influences on the Aesthetic Body Shape Model' (CIMEC-26) in a Spanish adolescent population. This questionnaire measures the influence of agents and situations that transmit the current aesthetic model, and assesses environmental influences favouring thinness. The CIMEC-26 was administered to a sample of 4031 female primary and secondary school students ranging in age from 10 to 17 years (M?=?14, SD?=?1.34). Results suggested that the CIMEC-26 has acceptable internal consistency (α?=?.93). The oldest group (15-17 years) had the highest scores on all factors and the highest total scores, suggesting greater influence of the aesthetic body shape model and higher vulnerability to social pressure to achieve it. Factor analysis suggested three moderately interrelated components of the scale. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that both the three-factor solution and the original five-factor structure had good fit indices, although the latter showed the best fit. The CIMEC-26 proved to be an effective instrument for research on the social influence on the aesthetic body model in female adolescents.     

Anxiety, depression and coping: CDI, MASC and CRI-Y for screening purposes in schools

This study used depression (CDI - Kovacs, 1981), anxiety (MASC - March, 1997) and coping strategy (CRI-Y - Moos, 1993) scales and studied the fitness and discriminant validity of reduced versions. The sample consisted of 916 Portuguese pupils, 54.3% feminine, aged 10 to 21 years old. The participants were selected from a set of public schools nation-wide. Two classes were chosen from the 5th to the 12th grades. A set of principal component analyses was carried out in a randomly chosen sample (n = 394) and all the three reduced measures were found to be strongly correlated with the previous. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) using the other part of the sample (n = 522) revealed adjustment indexes suggesting a good fit for both the whole model and gender and age groups separately. All scales revealed a good internal consistency. Globally, girls were more anxious and developed more coping strategies than boys. Older students tended to be less depressed, while younger adolescents present higher scores in depression and anxiety and less coping strategies. Reduced scales are sensitive to gender and age differences and can be used in school settings in order to establish a baseline and roadmaps for both universal and selective mental health school based programs.     

Variables associated with the nature of sexual abuse to minors

This study analyzes the prevalence and characteristics of childhood and adolescence sexual abuse suffered by a sample of university students, as well as the variables associated with the nature of abuse. Participants anonymously completed the Questionnaire on Child Sexual Abuse, in order to obtain information about experience of sexual abuse. Of a total of 2,375 students, 289 (12.2%) declared having suffered sexual abuse before the age of 18. The invasiveness, continuity, and severity of abuse was related to the location where the abuse took place (the more severe cases were committed in the homes of the victim and perpetrator) and to the circumstances of abuse (relationships with partners/at a party or while caring for a child predicted more severe abuse). The age of the victim (preschool) and an intrafamilial relationship between victim and perpetrator were also related to more invasive, continuous, and severe sexual abuse. The knowledge of characteristics of perpetrator and victim and the context in which sexual abuse occurs can help to better comprehend the nature and correlates of sexual abuse. The results of the present study may contribute to the design of programs for the prevention of sexual abuse to minors.     

Cross-cultural confirmatory factor analysis of the CES-D in Spanish and Mexican dementia caregivers

The Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) is the most frequently used scale for measuring depressive symptomatology in caregiving research. The aim of this study is to test its construct structure and measurement equivalence between caregivers from two Spanish-speaking countries. Face-to-face interviews were carried out with 595 female dementia caregivers from Madrid, Spain, and from Coahuila, Mexico. The structure of the CES-D was analyzed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (EFA and CFA, respectively). Measurement invariance across samples was analyzed comparing a baseline model with a more restrictive model. Significant differences between means were found for 7 items. The results of the EFA clearly supported a four-factor solution. The CFA for the whole sample with the four factors revealed high and statistically significant loading coefficients for all items (except item number 4). When equality constraints were imposed to test for the invariance between countries, the change in chi-square was significant, indicating that complete invariance could not be assumed. Significant between-countries differences were found for three of the four latent factor mean scores. Although the results provide general support for the original four-factor structure, caution should be exercised on reporting comparisons of depression scores between Spanish-speaking countries.     

Online Responsibility: Bad Samaritanism and the Influence of Internet Mediation

In 2008 a young man committed suicide while his webcam was running. 1,500 people apparently watched as the young man lay dying: when people finally made an effort to call the police, it was too late. This closely resembles the case of Kitty Genovese in 1964, where 39 neighbours supposedly watched an attacker assault and did not call until it was too late. This paper examines the role of internet mediation in cases where people may or may not have been good Samaritans and what their responsibilities were. The method is an intuitive one: intuitions on the various potentially morally relevant differences when it comes to responsibility between offline and online situations are examined. The number of onlookers, their physical nearness and their anonymity have no moral relevance when it comes to holding them responsible. Their perceived reality of the situation and ability to act do have an effect on whether we can hold people responsible, but this doesn’t seem to be unique to internet mediation. However the way in which those factors are intrinsically connected to internet mediation does seem to have a diminishing effect on responsibility in online situations.     

Congruent visual information improves traffic signage

In the last five decades, cognitive scientists and the psychologists of reasoning have dedicated a lot of effort designing usable traffic signs. This study investigated the interference effect produced by the position of the sign elements in traffic signage on response accuracy and reaction time. Sixteen drivers performed a flanker interference reaction time task. Incongruent graphical/space solutions, actually used for the airport stack-type sign, lead to increased reaction time and a reduction in the proportion of correct answers. These results suggest that incongruent visual information should be avoided, as this might impair drivers’ performance. These findings provide important information for the specification of future signage design guidelines and for improving road safety.     

Ruminations and Flow: Why Do People with a More Harmonious Passion Experience Higher Well-Being?

Research shows that harmonious and obsessive passion are positively and negatively linked to well-being respectively (e.g., Vallerand et al. in J Personal 75:505?C534, 2007; Psychol Sport Exerc 9:373?C392, 2008). The present study investigated the psychological mechanisms underlying the different impact of the two types of passion on well-being. A theoretical model involving passion, ruminations, flow experiences, and well-being was tested. Results showed that the more people have a harmonious passion, the more they tend to experience flow in their favorite activity, which in turn predicts higher well-being. Obsessive passion did not seem to be systematically linked to flow in the favorite activity. In contrast, the more people have an obsessive passion, the more they tend to ruminate about their passionate activity while engaging in another activity, which did not seem to be systematically the case for people with a harmonious passion. These ruminations are negatively related to flow experiences in the other activity, which are positively associated with well-being. Flow and ruminations thus seem to contribute to the understanding of the link between passion and well-being.     

Sequential learning and rule abstraction in Bengalese finches

The Bengalese finch (Lonchura striata var. domestica) is a species of songbird. Males sing courtship songs with complex note-to-note transition rules, while females discriminate these songs when choosing their mate. The present study uses serial reaction time (RT) to examine the characteristics of the Bengalese finches’ sequential behaviours beyond song production. The birds were trained to produce the sequence with an “A–B–A” structure. After the RT to each key position was determined to be stable, we tested the acquisition of the trained sequential response by presenting novel and random three-term sequences (random test). We also examined whether they could abstract the embedded rule in the trained sequence and apply it to the novel test sequence (abstract test). Additionally, we examined rule abstraction through example training by increasing the number of examples in baseline training from 1 to 5. When considered as (gender) groups, training with 5 examples resulted in no statistically significant differences in the abstract tests, while statistically significant differences were observed in the random tests, suggesting that the male birds learned the trained sequences and transferred the abstract structure they had learned during the training trials. Individual data indicated that males, as opposed to females, were likely to learn the motor pattern of the sequence. The results are consistent with observations that males learn to produce songs with complex sequential rules, whereas females do not.     

Context-related call combinations in female Diana monkeys

Non-human primates possess species-specific repertoires of acoustically distinct call types that can be found in adults in predictable ways. Evidence for vocal flexibility is generally rare and typically restricted to acoustic variants within the main call types or sequential production of multiple calls. So far, evidence for context-specific call sequences has been mainly in relation to external disturbances, particularly predation. In this study, we investigated extensively the vocal behaviour of free-ranging and individually identified Diana monkeys in non-predatory contexts. We found that adult females produced four vocal structures alone (‘H’, ‘L’, ‘R’ and ‘A’ calls, the latter consisting of two subtypes) or combined in non-random ways (‘HA’, ‘LA’ and ‘RA’ call combinations) in relation to ongoing behaviour or external events. Specifically, the concatenation of an introductory call with the most frequently emitted and contextually neutral ‘A’ call seems to function as a contextual refiner of this potential individual identifier. Our results demonstrate that some non-human primates are able to increase the effective size of their small vocal repertoire not only by varying the acoustic structure of basic call types but also by combining them into more complex structures. We have demonstrated this phenomenon for a category of vocalisations with a purely social function and discuss the implications of these findings for evolutionary theories of primate vocal communication.