A Structural Model for Adjustment to Aging among Older Women in Breast Cancer Remission

This study aims to build a structural model to explore the predictors of adjustment to aging (AtA) reported by older women in breast cancer remission. A community-dwelling sample of 771 older women in breast cancer remission aged between 75 and 98 years answered a questionnaire to determine socio-demographic (age, income, marital status, education, household, and living setting), and health-related characteristics (self-reported functional limitations and disabilities, time since remission, other type of cancer, breast reconstruction, perceived health, recent disease and medication). Several measures were employed to assess AtA, sense of coherence and subjective well-being. Structural equation modeling was used to explore a structural model of the self-reported AtA, encompassing all variables. Significant predictors of AtA are self-reported disability (β = .404; p < .001), time since remission (β = .371; p < .001), perceived health (β = .257; p < .001), other type of cancer (β = .231; p < .001), breast reconstruction (β = .153; p = .008), marital status (β = .141; p < .001), sense of coherence (β = .140; p < .001), and living setting (β = .139; p = .006). These variables accounted for 84.3% of the variability of AtA. Self-reported disability and time since remission were the strongest predictors of AtA. Our findings suggest that health care interventions with older women in breast cancer remission still living in the community may benefit from clearly including these predictors of AtA, as they are relevant for promoting older women’ s aging well.

     

Observers’ reactions to workplace incivility in the masculine domain: How does role congruency explain gender bias in future workers?

Based on Role Congruity Theory, we tested the hypothesis of gender bias by examining gender differences in observers’ evaluations of the awareness and acceptability of workplace incivility gender‐dyad interaction. Three hundred and ninety‐six Spanish high school students (55.3% female) read one scenario of overt incivility (publicly humiliates and openly doubts the employee's judgment) or covert (omits and pays little attention) from a leader (female vs. male) toward a subordinate (female vs. male) in engineering. Results indicated gender differences among observers. From the leader actor of incivility, males were more aware and accepted less the incivility when performed by a female leader in a male domain; whereas females were more aware and accepted less incivility than males in all cases. Regarding the subordinate target of incivility, only females were more aware and accepted less incivility, and both males and females were more aware and accepted less covert incivility. Our results reveal practical implications for interventions from a gender perspective.     

The Development of Anaphora Resolution in Spanish

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - The present study focuses on the development of Spanish pronominal processing. We investigate whether the pronoun interpretation problem (i.e., reflexive...     

Stepparent role strain and psychological distress

In the last few decades, Spain has witnessed a slow but progressive change in predominant family models. The purpose of this work is to advance in our knowledge of stepfamilies through the perspectives and experiences of two of their members, the stepfather and the stepmother. The theoretical model examined in this investigation proposes that stepparents' role strain could have negative effects on their psychological wellbeing. It also proposes that a satisfactory couple relation could mediate in the relation between role strain and psychological wellbeing. In this study, participants were 116 stepparents who had been living for at least one year with their partner. The most relevant results showed the adequacy of the proposed model and the higher vulnerability of stepmothers in these family structures.     

Why does selective attention to parts fail in face processing?

One hallmark of holistic face processing is an inability to selectively attend to 1 face part while ignoring information in another part. In 3 sequential matching experiments, the authors tested perceptual and decisional accounts of holistic processing by measuring congruency effects between cued and uncued composite face halves shown in spatially aligned or disjointed configurations. The authors found congruency effects when the top and bottom halves of the study face were spatially aligned, misaligned (Experiment 1), or adjacent to one another (Experiment 2). However, at test, congruency effects were reduced by misalignment and abolished for adjacent configurations. This suggests that manipulations at test are more influential than manipulations at study, consistent with a decisional account of holistic processing. When encoding demands for study and test faces were equated (Experiment 3), the authors observed effects of study configuration suggesting that, consistent with a perceptual explanation, encoding does influence the magnitude of holistic processing. Together, these results cannot be accounted for by current perceptual or decisional accounts of holistic processing and suggest the existence of an attention-dependent mechanism that can integrate spatially separated face parts.     

The other side of we: when outgroup members express common identity

Previous research on the common ingroup identity model has focused on how one's representations of members of the ingroup and outgroup influence intergroup attitudes. Two studies reported here investigated how learning how others, ingroup or outgroup members, conceive of the groups within a superordinate category affects intergroup bias and willingness to engage in intergroup contact. Across both studies, high school students who learned that other ingroup members categorized students at both schools within the common identity of "students" showed less intergroup bias in evaluations and greater willingness for contact. However, consistent with the hypothesized effects of identity threat, when participants read that outgroup members saw the groups within the superordinate category, they exhibited a relatively negative orientation, except when ingroup members also endorsed a superordinate identity (Study 1). This result occurred even when the relative status of the groups was manipulated (Study 2).     

Object detection and basic-level categorization: Sometimes you know it is there before you know what it is

A tight temporal coupling between object detection (is an object there?) and object categorization (what kind of object is it?) has recently been reported (Grill-Spector &; Kanwisher, 2005), suggesting that image segmentation into different objects and categorization of those objects at the basic level may be the very same mechanism. In the present work, we decoupled the time course of detection and categorization through two task manipulations. First, inverted objects were categorized significantly less accurately than upright objects across a range of image presentation durations, but no significant effect on object detection was observed. Second, systematically degrading stimuli affected categorization significantly more than object detection. The time course of object detection and object categorization can be selectively manipulated. They are not intrinsically linked. As soon as you know an object is there, you do not necessarily know what it is.     

Internalization of values and self-esteem among Brazilian teenagers from authoritative, indulgent, authoritarian, and neglectful homes

The relation between parenting styles and adolescent outcomes was analyzed in a sample of 1,198 15-18-year-old Brazilians. The adolescents were classified into 1 of 4 groups (Authoritative, Authoritarian, Indulgent, and Neglectful) on the basis of their own ratings of their parents on two dimensions: Acceptance/ Involvement and Strictness/Imposition. The adolescents were then contrasted along two different outcomes: (1) priority given to Schwartz Self-transcendence and Conservation values, and (2) level of Self-esteem (appraised in 5 domains: Academic, Social, Emotional, Family, and Physical). Results showed that Authoritative and Indulgent parenting is associated with the highest internalization of Self-Transcendence and Conservation values of teenagers, whereas Authoritarian parenting is associated with the lowest. On the other hand, adolescents with Indulgent parents have equal or higher levels of Self-esteem than adolescents with Authoritative parents, while adolescents raised in Authoritarian and Neglectful homes have the lowest scores in Self-Esteem.     

Behavioral problems in adolescents raised by their grandparents

This research analyzes, for the first time using a Spanish sample, the behavioral problems of adolescents in the custody of their grandparents. The sample consisted of 68 adolescents (31 boys and 37 girls, with a mean age of 13.7 years) in the custody of 54 grandparents with an average age of 65.9 years for the grandfathers, and 63.6 years for the grandmothers. The instrument employed was the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach, 2001). The results indicate that the majority of both boys and girls can be classified within the normal range on scales of internal behavior, external behavior and total behavioral problems. When gender and age differences were analyzed, it was found that boys had more behavioral problems than girls on scales of incompliance with rules and external behavior. Meanwhile, it was shown that older adolescents had more somatic problems, as well as more behavioral problems, as measured by both the internal scale and total scale of the CBCL, than the younger participants.     

Lipreading in the prelingually deaf: what makes a skilled speechreader?

Lipreading proficiency was investigated in a group of hearing-impaired people, all of them knowing Spanish Sign Language (SSL). The aim of this study was to establish the relationships between lipreading and some other variables (gender, intelligence, audiological variables, participants' education, parents' education, communication practices, intelligibility, use of SSL). The 32 participants were between 14 and 47 years of age. They all had sensorineural hearing losses (from severe to profound). The lipreading procedures comprised identification of words in isolation. The words selected for presentation in isolation were spoken by the same talker. Identification of words required participants to select their responses from set of four pictures appropriately labelled. Lipreading was significantly correlated with intelligence and intelligibility. Multiple regression analyses were used to obtain a prediction equation for the lipreading measures. As a result of this procedure, it is concluded that proficient deaf lipreaders are more intelligent and their oral speech was more comprehensible for others.