Social perception of the Spanish law for young offenders

The implementation of the law 5/2000 for the regulation of Criminal Responsibility for Minors has led to a change in interventions in cases of juvenile offenders. This law promotes the educational and rehabilitative aims of the measures imposed. However, the focus of the media on the most serious cases has generated considerable alarm in society in general. The aim of this study is to determine the social perception of Law 5/2000. For this purpose, a sample of 936 people from the Autonomous Region of the Canary Islands was surveyed. The main results indicate that there is a significant lack of knowledge about the law and that people tend to think that the measures taken are not as effective as studies carried out in connection with this subject have shown. Nevertheless, the people surveyed are more in favour of educational measures than of measures that penalize. These results are discussed in connection with the importance that community factors have in dealing with juvenile delinquency, and in particular, in the power of social pressure to modify legislation, and of the community to assume responsibility for the reinsertion of juvenile offenders.     

Factor structure and measurement invariance of the Wisconsin Schizotypy scales across gender and age

The Wisconsin Schizotypy Scales are among the most widely used instruments for the assessment of psychosis proneness. The main goal of the present work was to study the dimensional structure underlying the Revised Physical Anhedonia Scale (RPhA), the Revised Social Anhedonia Scale (RSAS), the Magical Ideation Scale (MIS) and the Perceptual Aberration Scale (PAS). It was also explored whether the dimensions underlying these scales were invariant across gender and age. The sample was made up of 710 university students with a mean age of 19.8 years (SD = 1.9). The results showed that the dimensional structure of the Wisconsin scales was similar to that found in previous studies, displaying a Positive dimension and a Negative dimension, the Social Anhedonia Scale being related to both dimensions. Moreover, the factor structure of the schizotypy scales was found to be invariant across participants' gender and age.     

Helping Callers to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Who Are at Imminent Risk of Suicide: The Importance of Active Engagement,Active Rescue,and Collaboration Between Crisis and Emergency Services

In 2012, the SAMHSA‐funded National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline) completed implementation of the first national Policy for Helping Callers at Imminent Risk of Suicide across its network of crisis centers. The policy sought to: (1) provide a clear definition of imminent risk; (2) reflect the state of evidence, field experience, and promising practices related to reducing imminent risk through hotline interventions; and (3) provide a uniform policy and approach that could be applied across crisis center settings. The resulting policy established three essential principles: active engagement, active rescue, and collaboration between crisis and emergency services. A sample of the research and rationale that underpinned the development of this policy is provided here. In addition, policy implementation, challenges and successes, and implications for interventions to help Lifeline callers at imminent risk of suicide are detailed.     

Teaching Religion in Brazil,in Public Schools and Confessional Colleges

This essay is part of a collection of short essays solicited from authors around the globe who teach religion courses at the college level (not for professional religious training). They are published together with an introduction in Teaching Theology and Religion 18:3 (July 2015). The authors were asked to provide a brief overview of the curriculum, student learning goals, and pedagogical techniques employed in their courses.     

Buffers or Boosters? The Role of HRM Practices in Older Workers' Experience of Stereotype Threat

Building on the social identity approach and the HRM literature, this two-wave cross-sectional study examined the effects of negative age-based metastereotypes on the age-based stereotype threat experience of older workers and on organizational disidentification. The moderator role of HRM practices in the relationship between negative age-based metastereotypes and age-based stereotype threat was also investigated. Older workers survey results (n = 469) from 14 manufacturing companies indicated that negative age-based metastereotypes correlate positively with stereotype threat. Moderation results showed that age-awareness HRM practices (training for older workers) reinforced age-based stereotype threat, whereas general HRM practices (recognition and respect) impaired it. The article suggests that the combination of age-based metastereotypes with a stereotype threat framework contributes to further understand older workers' beliefs and attitudes. It also indicates that to be effective, HRM practices should emphasize positive social identities older workers share with their colleagues, rather than giving older workers special treatment that may, after all, reinforce stigmatization.     

Analysis of apparent demonstrations of responding in accordance with relational frames of sameness and opposition

We evaluated whether contextual control over equivalence and nonequivalence and responding by exclusion can explain the outcomes of relational frame theory (RFT) studies on sameness and opposition relations. We trained nine college students to maintain and reverse conditional discriminations with X1 and X2 as contextual stimuli. In Experiment 1, X1 and X2 controlled derived stimulus relations (DSR) analogous to those controlled by Same and Opposite in RFT studies. These results can be explained by at least two hypotheses: X1 and X2 were cues for equivalence and nonequivalence and responding by exclusion, or for sameness and opposition. In Experiment 2, X1 and X2 controlled DSR predicted by the hypothesis that they were cues for equivalence and nonequivalence and responding by exclusion, and not predicted by the hypothesis that they were cues for sameness and opposition. The results of Experiment 2 and the functional equivalence of X1 and X2 with Same and Opposite in Experiment 1 suggest that Same and Opposite were cues for equivalence and nonequivalence and responding by exclusion in RFT studies.     

Paul Tillich's Realistic Stance Toward the Vital Trends of Nature

Many scientists have argued forcefully for the pointlessness of nature, something that challenges any doctrine of Creation. However, apparent design and comprehensibility are also to be found in nature; it is ambivalent. This trait is nowhere more evident than in the natural inclinations that lead to concupiscence and the "seven deadly sins" in human beings. These inclinations are dealt with as pertaining to the "pre-fallen" condition of nature and human beings. As a framework to make sense of the goodness of creation in this context, Paul Tillich's notion of the "vital trends of nature" is called to the fore. Being at the intersection of a philosophy of religion and a philosophy of nature, this notion hints at the goodness of Creation in fragment and anticipation.     

The Reading Literacy test for Secondary Education (CompLEC)

A new test to evaluate reading literacy, the Test of Reading Literacy for Secondary Education (CompLEC) is presented. CompLEC is based on the PISA assessment framework and new definitions of reading literacy. The test, easy to apply and score, assesses the level of reading literacy of children between 11 and 14 years of age in several reading situations (i.e., public, educational, personal and occupational) and with different types of texts (i.e., continuous and non-continuous). The scale has been standardized with a sample of 1,854 students from five different Spanish regions. Empirical results show that CompLEC is a homogeneous, reliable and valid instrument.     

The Spanish version of the Wisconsin Personality Disorders Inventory-IV (WISPI-IV): tests of validity and reliability

Personality disorders (PD) are a prevalent class of mental disorders that interfere with functioning and cause subjective distress while increasing the intensity and duration of Axis I clinical syndromes, and therefore assessing PD is important even when PDs are not the focus of treatment. The purpose of these studies was to develop and test a new Spanish version of a self-report measure of PD, the Wisconsin Personality Inventory-IV (WISPI-IV) that would be psychometrically equivalent to the English version while also maintaining the same interpersonal content, which is based on Benjamin's analysis of the PD criteria using her Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB) model (1974). Study 1 participants completed the WISPI-IV twice over a two-week interval. For Study 2, participants from two sites in Spain and one site in Argentina completed Spanish versions of the WISPI-IV and other personality measures. SASB-analysis of the translated items showed high correspondence between the interpersonal content of the English version and the Spanish version demonstrating theoretical validation in relation to other PD measures. The Spanish WISPI-IV showed satisfactory reliability based on test-retest correlations and alphas for internal consistency. Study 2 showed the Spanish WISPI-IV had good convergent validity with the Spanish versions of the IIP and SCID-II and performed similarly to the English versions of these measures. Our goal in translating the WISPI-IV was to extend this measure to Spanish-speakers in language that would be understood by different Hispanic sub-groups, however research team members and subjects had a variety of suggestions for changes in item wording. This reflects the difficulty with creating a "neutral" Spanish version of any assessment given regional differences.