Participating in politics resembles physical activity: general action patterns in international archives, United States archives, and experiments

A series of studies examined whether political participation can emerge from general patterns of indiscriminate activity. In the first two studies, general action tendencies were measured by combining national and state-level indicators of high activity (e.g., impulsiveness, pace of life, and physical activity) from international and U.S. data. This action-tendency index positively correlated with a measure of political participation that consisted of voting behaviors and participation in political demonstrations. The following two experimental studies indicated that participants exposed to action words (e.g., go, move) had stronger intentions to vote in an upcoming election and volunteered more time to make phone calls on behalf of a university policy than participants exposed to inaction words did (e.g., relax, stop). These studies suggest that political participation can be predicted from general tendencies toward activity present at the national and state levels, as well as from verbal prompts suggestive of activity.     

Sexually coercive tactics used by university students: a clear role for primary psychopathy

Current research suggests that people with psychopathic traits engage in sexual coercion as an alternative mating strategy. Research overlooks the relation between psychopathic traits and coercive behavior in male and female samples that engage in dating quite frequently. Male and female university students reported on their current relationship styles and their use of minor and severe sexually coercive tactics. Results indicate that primary psychopathy (using the Levenson's SRPS), but not secondary psychopathy, predicts the use of all measures of sexual coercion for both females and males, although males were more likely to exploit an intoxicated partner than females. Additionally, females with high levels of primary psychopathy were more likely to use physical forms of coercion. The findings show that the primary psychopathy features (callousness, charm, and selfishness) predict a shortterm mating strategy that focuses on gaining sex through minor forms of coercion and manipulation.     

The lower subjective social status of neurotic individuals: multiple pathways through occupational prestige, income, and illness

Subjective social status seems to predict health outcomes, above and beyond the contribution of objective status. The present hypothesis was that neuroticism predicts subjective status and does so via the influence of neuroticism on objective status (i.e., education, occupation, and income), self-perceived illness, and greater negative affect. In turn, lower subjective status would be associated with more severe self-perceived illness. Older adults (N=341) shortly after retirement completed measures of neuroticism, attainment in education, occupation, and salary, and over 2 subsequent years, they completed measures of current subjective status, self-reported illness, and current negative affect. As hypothesized, greater neuroticism was associated with lower subjective status via lower objective status and more severe self-reported illness. However, current negative affect was not associated with subjective status, and subjective status did not predict future poorer subjective health.     

Future-oriented emotions in the prediction of binge-drinking intention and expectation: the role of anticipated and anticipatory emotions

The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) offers a parsimonious explanation of purposive behavior, but in the study of healthy and risk behaviors its sufficiency may be questioned. Working with binge-drinking, a very common risk behavior in Spanish undergraduate students, we used two strategies for improving predictions from TPB: using behavioral intention (BI) and behavioral expectation (BE) as proximal antecedents of behaviors and adding as new predictors two future-oriented emotions (anticipated and anticipatory). Hierarchical regression analyses show that while anticipated emotions improved TPB explanations of BI, anticipatory emotions improved the explanations of BE. The present results show the influence of future emotions in the prediction of behavioral intention and behavioral expectation.     

Violence Exposure Mediates the Relation Between Callous-Unemotional Traits and Offending Patterns in Adolescents

The link between callous-unemotional (CU) traits in youth and delinquent, aggressive and violent behavior is well-replicated in the literature. However, the mediating effects of violence exposure on this relationship are unclear. The current study addresses this important gap in the literature with a sample of 88 detained, primarily ethnic minority adolescent boys (M age?=?15.57; SD?=?1.28). Results indicate that exposure to violence fully mediated the relationship between CU traits and violent delinquency, and this pattern of mediation was accounted for by exposure to witnessed violence, but not direct violent victimization. Secondly, exposure to violence, both direct and witnessed forms, also mediated the relationship between CU traits and drug delinquency. These findings suggest that (a) the well-established link between CU traits and violence may be attributed to high rates of witnessed violence among this subpopulation, and (b) specific types of violence exposure may be important for predicting the offending patterns of youth high on CU traits. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Validation study of the Questionnaire on School Maladjustment Problems (QSMP)

The aim of this study was to analyze the exploratory and confirmatory structure, as well as other psychometric properties, of the Cuestionario de Problemas de Convivencia Escolar (CPCE; in Spanish, the Questionnaire on School Maladjustment Problems [QSMP]), using a sample of Spanish adolescents. The instrument was administered to 60 secondary education teachers (53.4% females and 46.6% males) between the ages of 28 and 54 years (M= 41.2, SD= 11.5), who evaluated a total of 857 adolescent students. The first-order exploratory factor analysis identified 7 factors, explaining a total variance of 62%. A second-order factor analysis yielded three dimensions that explain 84% of the variance. A confirmatory factor analysis was subsequently performed in order to reduce the number of factors obtained in the exploratory analysis as well as the number of items. Lastly, we present the results of reliability, internal consistency, and validity indices. These results and their implications for future research and for the practice of educational guidance and intervention are discussed in the conclusions.     

Child and adolescent development: common mental disorders according to age and gender

Despite the increase in the incidence and prevalence rates of children and adolescents' mental disorders, there are few works performed with large and representative samples of children and adolescents with psychopathological symptoms. The present work analyses 588 participants referred by first care pediatricians to a specialized unit for children and adolescents' mental health. As a result of the study, a statistically significant relation was found between age and diagnosis: a larger incidence of behavioral disorders, communication disorders, elimination disorders, pervasive developmental disorders, impulse-control disorders from 0 to 5 years; behavioral disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were more common from 6 to 11 years, behavioral and anxiety disorders were more likely at 12 to 15 years; and, lastly, behavioral disorders were more prevalent from 16 to 18 years. With respect to gender, there was a significant relationship with diagnosis: boys had more behavioral disorders, whereas girl had more anxiety disorders. To conclude, a relationship between mental disorders and developmental achievements could be indicated in the younger group. Additionally, externalizing disorders in boys and internalizing ones n girls were more prevalent across all ages.     

Confidence–Accuracy Calibration with General Knowledge and Eyewitness Memory Cued Recall Questions

Summary: The confidence–accuracy relationship has primarily been studied through recognition tests and correlation analysis. However, cued recall is more ecological from a forensic perspective. Moreover, there may be more informative ways of analysing the confidence–accuracy relationship than correlations. In the present study, participants viewed a video of a bank robbery and were asked cued recall questions covering general knowledge and the video itself. Confidence ratings were collected, and correlations, calibration and discrimination measures were calculated. All measures indicated a strong confidence–accuracy relationship that was better for general knowledge than eyewitness memory questions. However, there were no differences in confidence ratings for correct answers, suggesting that the differences could be limited to the evaluation of incorrect answers. We concluded that confidence may be a good marker for accuracy with cued recall, but that further research using ecological tests and more informative data analysis techniques is needed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.