Perception of parental socialization strategies in adoptive and non-adoptive families

Although parental socialization styles have been investigated in recent years, little research has been carried out on the issue of parental styles in adoptive families. The aim of this research is to analyse parental styles both from the point of view of the parents and of adopted and non-adopted adolescents, taking as covariables the adolescents' sex and age. The sample was made up of 55 adopted adolescents (20 boys and 35 girls with an age range of 11-17 years) and their 55 adoptive parents, and 402 non-adopted adolescents (200 boys and 202 girls with an age range of 11-17 years), and their 258 parents. Two scales evaluated parental styles: the Affect Scale and the Rules and Demands Scale. The results showed that, both from the point of view of the parents and of the adolescents, adoptive families are more affective, communicative and inductive, and less critical and indulgent than non-adoptive families. No differences were found between adopted and non-adopted adolescents on the Parents' Rigidity Scale.     

Gender differences in pressure pain threshold in a repeated measures assessment

The objective of this study was to evaluate gender differences in the pain threshold, considering the type of pressure point, its location and the repetition of the assessment. The pressure pain threshold was evaluated in 30 healthy volunteers (12 men and 18 women) in three assessment sessions separated by 15 min and 7 days, respectively. Each assessment session was in turn composed of two trials in each of which 24 different pressure points (symmetrically located), representing the 18 tender points for the diagnosis of fibromyalgia and six control points, were assessed. Gender differences were found in the pain threshold for all of the points and the measures taken, women showing a lower pain threshold in comparison to men and being these differences more pronounced for control points than for tender points, the former reaching statistical significance in all cases. The analysis of the influence of repeated measures on gender differences in the pain threshold showed a distinct pattern of recuperation in men than in women, although only one difference in pain threshold was significant. The utility of the tender point concept to study gender differences in pain threshold and the mechanisms that may explain different patterns of recuperation between genders are discussed.     

Psychological consequences of rheumatic diseases in children and adolescents: A first exploratory study

The objective of our study was to make a first exploratory study about the psychological status of children and adolescents with rheumatic diseases exploring, also, the significant differences between girls and boys. A total of 123 children (81 girls and 42 boys) with rheumatic diseases, between the ages of 1 and 19 years old were assessed using different measures for evaluating behavioral and emotional problems. The results showed a picture of a mild or moderate degree of psychological problems in the different measures of anxiety, depression, general distress and behavioral problems. Girls, compared to boys, scored higher in most of the measures used, showing more internalizing than externalizing kinds of symptoms. The results suggest the importance of making a more detailed study of these children, comparing them with matched controls and making prospective, longitudinal studies in order to detect psychological problems, and to explore the influence of predictive variables.     

Does response interference contribute to face composite effects?

Holistic processing of faces can be measured as a failure of selective attention to one face-half under instructions to ignore the other face-half in a naming or same/different matching task. But is interference from the irrelevant half due to response interference rather than to holistic processing? Here, participants learned to name two faces “Fred” and two “Bob.” At test, composites were created from top and bottom halves of different learned faces or of a novel face, and composites were either aligned or misaligned. Naming was slower when the irrelevant half was from a different face as opposed to the same face, regardless of whether it was associated with the same name, a different name, or no name, suggesting holistic processing. Interference was eliminated when composite halves were misaligned. These results suggest that, unlike Stroop effects, composite effects are not due to response interference.     

The Linguistic Therapy of Evaluation: A Treatment Plan for Silvia

This paper describes the treatment of a depressed woman, Silvia (I. Caro, 2001), treated with the linguistic therapy of evaluation. The linguistic therapy of evaluation is a type of cognitive psychotherapy developed from the theory of general semantics. The theory and the treatment are based on the use of language and the role this plays in the development of emotional problems such as anxiety and depression. We briefly describe the main conceptual and assessment issues of the therapy and the procedure followed in the case of Silvia. The aim of the therapy is to change patients' evaluations, that is, to help them to develop an extensional orientation instead of an intensional orientation, which is assumed to be at the core of emotional problems. The paper ends with a brief review of the process and outcome research that has demonstrated the efficacy and the clinical process of the linguistic therapy of evaluation.     

Grammatical gender processing in bilinguals: An analytic review

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - In this review article, we analyze how grammatical gender is represented and processed in the bilingual mind. To that end, we review the data from 13 existing...     

Psychometric properties of the Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) among HIV/AIDS patients

AIDS patients and HIV carriers who are aware of their condition are under multiple kinds of stress with adverse effects on their emotional state and personal and social activity. This paper reports the psychometric properties of the DAS (Death Anxiety Scale) using the Spanish version in the clinical setting. The sample is made up of 148 HIV/AIDS patients (109 men and 39 women). The internal consistency of the scale was .72 and its test-retest reliability was .70. Principal components analysis extracted five factors that jointly accounted for 56.5% of the total variance. As, on the whole, these results are very similar to those reported by other authors, it is concluded that the Spanish DAS is a valid instrument for the assessment of death anxiety in Spanish HIV/AIDS patients.     

A study of physicians' intention to quit: the role of burnout, commitment and difficult doctor-patient interactions

Research on burnout and turnover intentions offers some inconsistent findings about the effects of commitment. In addition, a factor which is insufficiently studied in the turnover field is the relationship with the recipient of physicians' work, that is, the patient. This study contributes to the research literature by examining how the moderating effect of commitment depends on difficult doctor-patient relations. A total of 480 physicians, representative of Madrid, completed the survey. According to the interaction effects and the three-way interaction analyses, the results support the argument that differences in commitment lead to differences in the way physicians perceive job, interpersonal, and chronic stress. These results add a new approach to the general assumption that commitment has a unilateral negative effect, and difficult patients have a positive effect on turnover intentions, suggesting an integrated perspective, rather than a diametrical one, that allows us comprehend the complexity of physicians' turnover intentions.     

Laterality effects in the recognition of depth-rotated novel objects

The dissociable neural subsystems theory proposes that left-hemisphere (LH) performance is dominated by a viewpoint-invariant (VI) recognition subsystem, whereas right-hemisphere (RH) performance is dominated by a viewpoint-dependent (VD) subsystem (Marsolek, 1999). Studies supporting this theory have used familiar objects and, therefore, may have been confounded by characteristics beyond perceptual features. Experiment 1, a lateralized sequential-matching task with novel objects, showed VD recognition in both hemispheres. In Experiment 2, some participants learned semantic associations for four novel objects, whereas others were exposed to the novel objects without the semantic associations. Both groups later performed a depth-rotated lateralized sequential-matching task. The participants who had learned semantic associations showed greater VD performance in the RH than in the LH; however, the participants in the control group showed equivalent VD performance in both hemispheres. The results suggest that hemispheric differences in VD performance may be partially attributable to an LH advantage for semantic processing.     

Couple-Focused Interventions for HIV-Serodiscordant Couples During Transition to Motherhood

When HIV is transmitted between spouses or partners it is a major life trauma for both members of the couple. In Portugal, most women become aware of infection during routine prenatal examinations. A significant proportion of these women simultaneously face pregnancy, a deadly disease, and HIV-serodiscordance. In the context of maternity, there is a growing consensus that psychological intervention should address the couple as a unit. Couple-focused HIV interventions reinforce the importance of addressing relational dynamics within dyads, including communication, problem-solving skills, disclosure, and relationship quality issues. Immediate reproductive decisions, the possibility of mother-to-child transmission, and future perspectives impose additional challenges. Two case examples illustrate the application of couple-focused interventions. Also addressed are the specific problems and potentialities of this type of intervention.