Sexual attitudes and behavior of Guatemalan teenagers: considerations for prevention of adolescent pregnancy

Two studies were conducted to explore the prevalence of adolescent pregnancy in Guatemala, and to identify the level of contraception. The first study assessed sexual attitudes and behavior of 850 adolescents. In this group, 89% of the males and 38% of the females said they had experienced coitus. Youngsters of upper-middle and lower-middle socioeconomic status had higher rates of coital activity than did those of the middle class. Only 10% of the sexually active couples were using some type of contraception. Boys indicated greater inclination toward "recreational" sex, while girls tended to be more affectively involved with their lovers. Ninety-six percent of sexually active girls planned to marry their current sexual partner, while 5.5% of the boys planned to do so. The second study assessed the prevalence of pregnancy in minors (17 years or younger) attending the gynecology department at a local general hospital. Over a period of two years, 551 cases were identified. Although rates of pregnancy increased with age, the rate of annual increase was dramatically highest from ages 13 to 14, after which it decreased progressively with age. Based on these results, it is recommended that, at least in the Guatemalan population, sex education be implemented at an early age in order to prevent adolescent pregnancy.     

Number line estimation in highly math‐anxious individuals

In this study, we aimed to investigate the difficulties highly math‐anxious individuals (HMA) may face when having to estimate a number's position in a number line task. Twenty‐four HMA and 24 low math‐anxiety (LMA) individuals were presented with four lines with endpoints 0–100, 0–1,000, 0–100,000, and 267–367 on a computer monitor on which they had to mark the correct position of target numbers using the mouse. Although no differences were found between groups in the frequency of their best‐fit model, which was linear for all lines, the analysis of slopes and intercepts for the linear model showed that the two groups differed in performance on the less familiar lines (267–367 and 0–100,000). Lower values for the slope and higher values for the intercept were found in the HMA group, suggesting that they tended to overestimate small numbers and underestimate large numbers on these non‐familiar lines. Percentage absolute error analyses confirmed that HMA individuals were less accurate than their LMA counterparts on these lines, although no group differences were found in response time. These results indicate that math anxiety is related to worse performance only in the less familiar and more difficult number line tasks. Therefore, our data challenge the idea that HMA individuals might have less precise numerical representations and support the anxiety–complexity effect posited by Ashcraft and colleagues.     

The self-protective and undermining effects of attributional ambiguity

Two experiments assessed the self-protective and undermining effects of attributional ambiguity. Both studies utilized immersive virtual environment technology to achieve otherwise difficult manipulations of stigma. In Experiment 1, White and Latino participants were either stigmatized (represented as Latino) or not (represented as White) and given negative leadership performance feedback. Afterwards, stigmatized participants reported higher well-being and attributed negative feedback more to discrimination than nonstigmatized participants. In Experiment 2, Latinos represented veridically showed self-protective effects after receiving negative leadership feedback. Additionally, this experiment revealed undermining effects of attributional ambiguity such that those participants represented as Latino discounted positive feedback and reported lower well-being. Thus, attributional ambiguity of stigmatized individuals (real or induced) buffered well-being in the face of negative feedback but undermined the well-being effects of positive feedback.     

A Dyadic Perspective on Speech Accommodation and Social Connection: Both Partners' Rejection Sensitivity Matters

Findings from confederate paradigms predict that mimicry is an adaptive route to social connection for rejection‐sensitive individuals (Lakin, Chartrand, & Arkin, 2008). However, dyadic perspectives predict that whether mimicry leads to perceived connection depends on the rejection sensitivity (RS) of both partners in an interaction. We investigated these predictions in 50 college women who completed a dyadic cooperative task in which members were matched or mismatched in being dispositionally high or low in RS. We used a psycholinguistics paradigm to assess, through independent listeners' judgments (N = 162), how much interacting individuals accommodate phonetic aspects of their speech toward each other. Results confirmed predictions from confederate paradigms in matched RS dyads. However, mismatched dyads showed an asymmetry in levels of accommodation and perceived connection: Those high in RS accommodated more than their low‐RS partner but emerged feeling less connected. Mediational analyses indicated that low‐RS individuals' nonaccommodation in mismatched dyads helped explain their high‐RS partners' relatively low perceived connection to them. Establishing whether mimicry is an adaptive route to social connection requires analyzing mimicry as a dyadic process influenced by the needs of each dyad member.     

Phobic anxiety in 11 nations. Part I: Dimensional constancy of the five-factor model

The Fear Survey Schedule-III (FSS-III) was administered to a total of 5491 students in Australia, East Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, and Venezuela, and submitted to the multiple group method of confirmatory analysis (MGM) in order to determine the cross-national dimensional constancy of the five-factor model of self-assessed fears originally established in Dutch, British, and Canadian samples. The model comprises fears of bodily injury-illness-death, agoraphobic fears, social fears, fears of sexual and aggressive scenes, and harmless animals fears. Close correspondence between the factors was demonstrated across national samples. In each country, the corresponding scales were internally consistent, were intercorrelated at magnitudes comparable to those yielded in the original samples, and yielded (in 93% of the total number of 55 comparisons) sex differences in line with the usual finding (higher scores for females). In each country, the relatively largest sex differences were obtained on harmless animals fears. The organization of self-assessed fears is sufficiently similar across nations to warrant the use of the same weight matrix (scoring key) for the FSS-III in the different countries and to make cross-national comparisons feasible. This opens the way to further studies that attempt to predict (on an a priori basis) cross-national variations in fear levels with dimensions of national cultures.     

Evaluación de la escala de control de la acción

Resumen

El objetivo ele la investigación fue determinar las propiedades psicométricas básicas de la Escala de Control de la Acción de Kuhl en una muesta de estudiantes mexicanos. La escala fue traducida y sometida a varias revisiones por los autores, después de lo cual se aplicó a una muestra de 180 estudiantes universitarios. La confiabilidad alfa de Cronbach de las diferentes subescalas fue baja. Un análisis de componentes principales con rotación ortogonal mostró que el porcentaje de varianza explicada por el primer factor de cada subescala fue muy pequeño. Se intenta explicar los resultados con base en la deficiente caracterización que hace Kubl de las diferentes clases de orientación hacia el estado y factores de tipo cultural.     

Therapeutic activities and the assimilation model: A preliminary exploratory study on the Insight stage

The assimilation model describes the process of change assuming that the self is enriched when there is a dialogue between nondominant voices or problematic experiences and the dominant voices. This dialogue is best seen in the Insight stage. The aim of this paper is to study the Insight stage during the assimilation process in relation to the main therapeutic activities performed by the therapist. All the Insights from the assimilation process of a patient, María, were analysed. In assimilation terms, María could be described through the nondominant voices of “dizziness,” “tiredness,” and “inability to cope with daily demands,” and through the dominant voices of “control,” “overcome and solve,” and “why something is happening.” María showed a successful assimilation of her problematic experiences. The therapeutic context was the Linguistic Therapy of Evaluation (LTE), a kind of cognitive therapy based on the theory of General Semantics. María was considered a good outcome case in the LTE sample. Results showed that there were some general therapeutic activities related to these Insights. A high percentage of activities pointed to one of the main issues of LTE: the development of an extensional orientation. At the same time, some of these activities were related to María’s voices. Results are discussed in relation to the relevance of the development of an extensional orientation for the assimilation process; how voices are recognized or challenged in therapy, and to the importance of considering relationship issues during the assimilation process.     

Effects of Language of Implementation on Functional Analysis Outcomes

This study evaluated the influence of language of implementation on functional analysis outcomes for a child with a severe intellectual disability from a Spanish-speaking home. Challenging behavior was assessed during 5-min sessions under 4 conditions; attention, play-verbal, play-nonverbal, and demand and across 2 phases; implementation in English versus Spanish. The highest levels of challenging behavior occurred during the attention and demand conditions of the English phases. These results suggest that the language of implementation may influence the overall levels of challenging behavior within functional analysis conditions.     

Comparative Study Between the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Value–Belief–Norm Model Regarding the Environment,on Spanish Housewives' Recycling Behavior

Environmental behaviors have been analyzed from different theoretical models. The theory of planned behavior emphasizes the attitudinal aspects associated with behavior, while the value–belief–norm model regarding the environment focuses on the importance of moral components when setting environmental behaviors in motion. The objective of this study was to analyze both models, comparing both their degree of fit and their predictive power regarding recycling behavior. To do so, we used a sample made up of 154 Spanish housewives. The results indicated that despite the fact that the theory of planned behavior is a general model for predicting and explaining behavior, it has a greater degree of fit and greater capacity to predict recycling behavior than the value–belief–norm model regarding the environment.