Positive Experiences at Work and Daily Recovery: Effects on Couple’s Well-Being

The present diary study investigates, at the within-person level, how job satisfaction mediates the relationship between self-rated job performance and recovery experiences (i.e., psychological detachment from work and relaxation) during off-job time. Furthermore, we explore the effects of these two recovery experiences on couple´s well-being. Data were collected from 145 dual-earner couples (N = 290 participants; N = 1450 occasions) with a daily diary design (five consecutive working days). Multilevel analyses showed that daily job performance positively predicted psychological detachment and relaxation, and that daily job satisfaction partially mediated this relationship. In addition, we found that psychological detachment and relaxation have positive effects on own and partner´s indicators of well-being (i.e., relationship satisfaction and positive emotions). The benefits of recovery go beyond the individual and affect their partner´s level of well-being.     

Spiritual Intelligence Self-Assessment Inventory: Psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of SISRI-24

ABSTRACT

Spiritual intelligence has gained increasing importance as an academic construct in the field of psychology. We present the psychometric properties for the Portuguese adaptation of the Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory-24, SISRI-24. The exploratory analysis showed a factorial structure different from the original scale, comprising three factors instead of four as in the original version, in which “Transcendental Awareness” was removed. The confirmatory factorial analysis revealed adjustment to a three-factor model for the Portuguese version. The main indexes of adjustment are generally better than the original four-factor version, suggesting the adequacy of this solution for the Portuguese population. The analysis with the convergent measures (SWBQ and MPWQ) provides evidence of the construct’s validity and criterion. The results are promising, allowing us to proceed with the uses of this tool for measuring spiritual intelligence, which may, however, be improved in the future.     

Daily Peer Hassles and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Adolescence: Gender Differences in Avoidance-Focused Emotion Regulation Processes

This study aimed to examine the mediating role of rumination, experiential avoidance, dissociation and depressive symptoms in the association between daily peer hassles and non-suicidal self-injury among adolescents. Additionally, this study explored gender differences in these associations and tested whether the proposed model was invariant across genders. The sample consisted of 776 adolescents, of them 369 are males (47.6%) and 407 are females (52.4%), aged between 12 and 18 years old from middle and high schools in Portugal. Participants completed self-report questionnaires to assess daily peer hassles, rumination in its severe component (i.e., brooding), experiential avoidance, dissociation, depressive symptoms and non-suicidal self-injury. Path analysis showed that daily peer hassles indirectly impact on non-suicidal self-injury through increased levels of brooding, experiential avoidance, dissociation, and depressive symptoms. Results indicated significant gender differences in mean scores and path analysis. Male adolescents were more likely to engage in brooding and experiential avoidance in response to external distress (particularly, daily peer hassles), whereas female adolescents were more likely to engage in non-suicidal self-injury in response to internal distress (particularly, depressive symptoms). These findings suggest relevant preventive and intervention actions to address emotion dysregulation in adolescence, by teaching them acceptance and mindfulness skills as a way of coping with stressful experiences and internal distress.     

Validation Study of the Portuguese Version of the Family Problem Solving Communication (FPSC) Index

Within family stress theories, the way in which families communicate about their hardships and issues is crucial for the family’s stress management and functioning. In the current study, we sought to validate the Portuguese version of the Family Problem Solving Communication (FPSC) Index and examine its psychometric properties. Developed within the context of the resiliency model of family stress, adjustment and adaptation, the FPSC is a ten-item self-report measure that assesses the family communication patterns that are likely to play a role in the family’s coping with hardships and difficulties. The participants were 332 individuals between 18 and 76 years who completed the FPSC and self-report measures of family hardiness and family functioning. A confirmatory factor analysis supported the original FPSC bifactorial structure, indicating the presence of two dimensions, Affirmative Communication and Incendiary Communication. Correlations between the scale’s total score and its dimensions with the measures of family hardiness and family functioning attested to its convergent validity. Furthermore, the index demonstrated respectable to very good internal consistency and temporal stability. In conclusion, the Portuguese version of the FPSC is a valid and reliable instrument that can support the development of future empirical studies focused on family problem solving communication, especially with regard to family adaptation in different contexts of adversity.     

The Compositionality of Logical Connectives in Child Italian

This paper investigates the interpretation that Italian-speaking children and adults assign to negative sentences with disjunction and negative sentences with conjunction. The aim of the study was to determine whether children and adults assign the same interpretation to these types of sentences. The Semantic Subset Principle (SSP) (Crain et al., in: Clifton, Frazer, Rayner (eds) Perspective on sentence processing, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillside, 1994) predicts that children’s initial scope assignment should correspond to the interpretation that makes sentences true in the narrowest range of circumstances, even when this is not the interpretation assigned by adults. This prediction was borne out in previous studies in Japanese, Mandarin and Turkish. As predicted by the SSP, the findings of the present study indicate that Italian-speaking children and adults assign the same interpretation to negative sentences with conjunction (conjunction takes scope over negation). By contrast, the study revealed that some children differed from adults in the interpretation they assigned to negative sentences with disjunction. Adults interpreted disjunction as taking scope over negation, whereas children were divided into two groups: one group interpreted disjunction as taking scope over negation as adults did; another group interpreted negation as taking scope over disjunction, as predicted by the SSP. To explain the findings, we propose that Italian-speaking children initially differ from adults as dictated by the SSP, but children converge on the adult grammar earlier than children acquiring other languages due to the negative concord status of Italian, including the application of negative concord to sentences with disjunction.     

Sexual‐perception processes in acquaintance‐targeted sexual aggression

This study analyzes data from seven published studies to examine whether three performance‐based indices of men's misperception of women's sexual interest (MSI), derived from a self‐report questionnaire, are associated with sexual‐aggression history, rape‐supportive attitudes, sociosexuality, problem drinking, and self‐reported MSI. Almost 2000 undergraduate men judged the justifiability of a man's increasingly unwanted advances toward a woman on the Heterosocial Perception Survey‐Revised. Participants self‐reported any sexual‐aggression history, and some completed questionnaires assessing rape‐supportive attitudes, sociosexuality, problem drinking, and self‐reported MSI. A three‐parameter logistic function was fitted to participants’ justifiability ratings within a non‐linear mixed‐effects framework, which provided precise participant‐specific estimates of three sexual‐perception processes (baseline justifiability, bias, and sensitivity). Sexual‐aggression history and rape‐supportive attitudes predicted: (a) reduced sensitivity to women's affect; (b) more liberal biases, such that the woman's affect had to be more negative before justifiability ratings dropped substantially; and (c) greater baseline justifiability of continued advances after a positive response. Sexual‐aggression history and attitudes correlated more strongly with sensitivity than baseline justifiability; remaining variables showed the opposite pattern. This work underscores the role of sexual‐perception processes in sexual aggression and illustrates the derivation of performance‐based estimates of sexual‐perception processes from questionnaire responses.

     

Personality Disorders Are Not as We Thought: Hierarchical Factor Structure at the Criterion Level

The use of personality disorder (PD) categories persists, despite the evidence against them. An often overlooked reason for this is the fact that the true structure underlying the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) taxonomy is still unknown: We cannot be certain which disorders are valid, and which ones are arbitrary mixtures of heterogeneous traits. To address this gap, we factor analyzed the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire (PDQ–4+; Hyler, 1994 Hyler, S. E. (1994). PDQ–4+ Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire–4+. New York, NY: New York State Psychiatric Institute. [Google Scholar]) at the criterion level in a mixed clinical and nonclinical sample of 2,519 individuals. The resulting structure was more similar to current dimensional taxonomies than to the DSM classification at all hierarchical levels. Whereas paranoid and antisocial PDs—and to a lesser extent avoidant, dependent, depressive, and schizoid PDs—were fairly homogeneous, all other disorders turned out to be combinations of 2 or 3 unrelated dimensions. Our results strongly support the structure of empirically based dimensional taxonomies and relocate DSM criteria within this emerging framework, thus contributing to preserving much of the knowledge accumulated to date.     

The Effect of Locus of Control on University Students' Mental Health: Possible Mediation through Self-Esteem and Coping

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of locus of control on university students' mental health and to examine possible mediational roles of self-esteem and coping. A total of 418 university students completed Rotters I-E Scale, Self-liking/self-competence Scale, Endlers Coping with Stressful Situations Scale and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale. The results showed that external locus of control, lower self-liking and self-competence, as well as less problem-focused and more emotion-focused coping predict more symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress in university students. However, mediational analysis revealed that the effect of locus of control was fully mediated by self-esteem and coping, with self-liking and emotion-focused coping being the strongest mediators. Results suggest that beliefs about control affect beliefs about one's self-worth and coping strategies, which in turn can affect one's mental health.     

Self-Criticism,Neediness, and Distress in the Prediction of Suicide Ideation: Results from Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Studies

The aim of the present study was to test whether the maladaptive personality traits of self-criticism and neediness predict suicide ideation when controlling for general distress. Further, potential interactive effects on suicide ideation of the two traits and distress were also evaluated. Two studies with nonclinical samples were conducted. The first investigation was cross-sectional and involved a final sample of 202 community adults while the second study was longitudinal with a final sample of 207 college students. Results of Study 1 demonstrated that self-criticism, but not neediness, associated with suicide ideation and, in doing so, also interacted with distress. Neediness also tended to interact with self-criticism in the prediction of suicide ideation. Results from Study 2 were similar and confirmed the Study 1 results. Changes in self-criticism, but not changes in neediness, predicted changes in suicide ideation after statistically controlling for changes in distress. Changes in the interaction between self-criticism and distress predicted changes in suicide ideation and changes in the interaction between self-criticism and neediness tended to predict changes in suicide ideation. Results are discussed with regard to their implications for psychological intervention.