Corporal punishment and long-term behavior problems: the moderating role of positive parenting and psychological aggression

The aims of this study were: (a) to examine the prevalence of corporal punishment (CP) of children in Spain; (b) to analyze the extent to which CP is used in combination with psychological aggression and positive parenting among Spanish parents; and (c) to investigate whether the relation between CP and behavior problems is moderated by a positive parenting context in which CP may be used, and by the co-occurrence of psychological aggression. The sample comprised 1,071 Spanish university students (74.8% female; 25.2% male). Findings indicate a high prevalence of CP of Spanish students, revealing that significantly more mothers than fathers used CP. Furthermore, more CP is related to more use of psychological aggression and less of positive parenting. Regression analyses revealed that CP was associated with an increased probability of antisocial traits and behaviors regardless of whether there was positive parenting and psychological aggression. These results highlight that, though many Spanish parents use CP as a disciplinary strategy, it appears to be related to negative outcomes for children regardless the parental context in which it is used.     

Risk factors associated with eating disorders in Mexican preadolescents with normal weight

This study aimed to identify the differences in body self-esteem, general self-esteem and eating attitudes in a representative sample of children, aged 9-12 years, attending school in México DF. The logistic regression model incorporated the variables of sex, general self-esteem, BMI, age and discrepancy between the perceived image and the ideal image. Participants with an increased risk of eating disorders were girls: a) with less general self-esteem; b) BMI at the upper range of normal weight; c) greater negative discrepancy between perceived and ideal image; d) aged 11-12 years. Higher general self-esteem would act as a protector for eating disorders, while the desire for a thinner ideal body would be a risk factor.     

Saving Mach’s View on Atoms

According to a common belief concerning the Mach-Boltzmann debate on atoms, the new experiments performed in microphysics at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries confirmed Boltzmann’s atomic hypothesis and disproved Mach’s anti-atomic view. This paper intends to show that this belief is partially unjustified. Mach’s view on atoms consists in fact of different kinds of arguments. While the new experiments in microphysics refute indeed his scientific arguments against the atomic hypothesis, his epistemological arguments are unaffected. In this regard, Mach’s epistemological approach remains relevant for today’s discussion on the status of the notion of atom.     

Analysis of the indicators of pathological Internet use in Spanish university students

Addiction to and problematic use of the Internet are relatively recent phenomena whose scope, characteristics and correlates have begun to receive increasing attention by clinicians and researchers alike. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between time spent connected to the Internet and the variables that indicate a pathological and addictive use of this technological resource. The sample was comprised of 1,301 university students of both sexes (927 women and 374 men), with ages ranging from 18 to 30 years old. The results showed that, although most people use the Internet appropriately, users who invest higher quantities of time in the Internet more frequently exhibit connection behavior that is controlled through negative reinforcement, a high degree of arousal when online, loss of control over connection behavior, changes in health-related habits, and interference in the social, family, academic, or work spheres. These findings suggest that excessive Internet use is associated with the onset of several problems that are similar to those associated with other behavioral and technological addictions.     

The Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26): reliability and validity in Spanish female samples

This paper focuses on the validation of the Spanish form of the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26; Garner, Olmsted, Bohr & Garfinkel, 1982) across two studies. Participants in Study 1 were 778 females recruited from community settings (aged 12-21). Study 2 included 86 females recruited from clinical and 86 females from community settings (aged 12-35). Results from Principal and Simultaneous Component Analyses showed a unidimensional structure of the EAT-26 item scores. Reliability analyses supported the internal consistency of the scale. Study 1 also explores the ability of the EAT-26 to discriminate between subjects with Eating Disorder (ED), Symptomatic or Asymptomatic by means of ROC analyses and using results from the Questionnaire for Eating Disorder Diagnoses (Q-EDD; Mintz, O'Halloran, Mulholland, & Schneider, 1997) as criterion. The EAT-26 demonstrated good specificity but insufficient sensitivity to detect a full or partial ED. Study 2 explores the ability of the questionnaire to discriminate between subjects with and without ED. The EAT-26 demonstrated good specificity and moderate sensitivity to detect ED. Clinical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.     

The interplay between social dominance orientation and intergroup contact in explaining support for multiculturalism

In two studies, we tested whether social dominance orientation (SDO) and intergroup contact interacted in shaping support for multiculturalism. Study 1 was correlational, while in Study 2 we measured SDO and experimentally manipulated intergroup contact (imagined contact paradigm). We found that SDO and intergroup contact interacted on support for multiculturalism: Intergroup contact was associated with more support for multiculturalism only for high‐SDO individuals, and SDO was negatively associated to support for multiculturalism more strongly for individuals with low or no contact. Finally, we discussed the role of the intergroup setting in which studies are conducted.     

Pragmatism,enactivism, and ecological psychology: towards a unified approach to post-cognitivism

This paper argues that it is possible to combine enactivism and ecological psychology in a single post-cognitivist research framework if we highlight the common pragmatist assumptions of both approaches. These pragmatist assumptions or starting points are shared by ecological psychology and the enactive approach independently of being historically related to pragmatism, and they are based on the idea of organic coordination, which states that the evolution and development of the cognitive abilities of an organism are explained by appealing to the history of interactions of that organism with its environment. It is argued that the idea of behavioral or organic coordination within the enactive approach gives rise to the sensorimotor abilities of the organism, while the ecological approach emphasizes the coordination at a higher-level between organism and environment through the agent’s exploratory behavior for perceiving affordances. As such, these two different processes of organic coordination can be integrated in a post-cognitivist research framework, which will be based on two levels of analysis: the subpersonal one (the neural dynamics of the sensorimotor contingencies and the emergence of enactive agency) and the personal one (the dynamics that emerges from the organism-environment interaction in ecological terms). If this proposal is on the right track, this may be a promising first step for offering a systematized and consistent post-cognitivist approach to cognition that retain the full potential of both enactivism and ecological psychology.

     

The Protective Role of the Family and Social Support Network in a Sample of HIV-Positive African American Women: Results of a Pilot Study

This study examined the role of family functioning and social support in protecting HIV-positive African American women from the adverse psychological consequences associated with deterioration in their CD4 cell count. Participants were 38 African American HIV-positive women who had recently given birth. Results demonstrated that changes in CD4 cell counts were inversely predictive of psychological distress and were moderated by family functioning and social support satisfaction. Women with good family functioning were less affected by changes in their CD4 cell counts, and women with poor family functioning were more emotionally responsive to changes in CD4 cell count. Unexpectedly, women from families where conflicts tended to be clearly laid out and discussed were also more responsive to both changes in CD4 cell counts. Interventions are recommended that increase a client's social support satisfaction, foster an adaptive level of connectedness to family, and enhance the family's range of conflict resolution styles.     

Does g variance change in adulthood? Testing the age de-differentiation hypothesis across sex

In the last decade, changes in the structure of intelligence across the life-span has become a central topic in the research on human intelligence. One of the main hypotheses that has arisen to account for such changes has been the age de-differentiation hypothesis [Balinsky, Genetic Psychology Monographs 23 1941, 191]. It predicts an increase in the importance of g, and a decrease in the number and importance of the lower-order abilities from early maturity to senescence. Despite of the research effort to test this hypothesis, no study has ever been conducted controlling by sex. For that purpose, males and females of the Spanish standardisation sample of the WAIS-III were analysed separately. Results show that the importance of g does not change with age irrespective of sex. Thus, the age de-differentiation hypothesis is rejected for both males and females. The indifferentiation hypothesis is supported as a more appropriate view of the changes in the structure of intelligence across adulthood.     

Learning by Collaborative and Individual‐Based Recommendation Agents

Intelligent recommendation systems can be based on 2 basic principles: collaborative filters and individual‐based agents. In this work we examine the learning function that results from these 2 general types of learning‐smart agents. There has been significant work on the predictive properties of each type, but no work has examined the patterns in their learning from feedback over repeated trials. Using simulations, we create clusters of “consumers” with heterogeneous utility functions and errorful reservation utility thresholds. The consumers go shopping with one of the designated smart agents, receive recommendations from the agents, and purchase products they like and reject ones they do not. Based on the purchase–no purchase behavior of the consumers, agents learn about the consumers and potentially improve the quality of their recommendations. We characterize learning curves by modified exponential functions with an intercept for percentage of recommendations accepted at Trial 0, an asymptotic rate of recommendation acceptance, and a rate at which learning moves from intercept to asymptote. We compare the learning of a baseline random recommendation agent, an individual‐based logistic‐regression agent, and two types of collaborative filters that rely on K‐mean clustering (popular in most commercial applications) and nearest‐neighbor algorithms. Compared to the collaborative filtering agents, the individual agent (a) learns more slowly, initially, but performs better in the long run when the environment is stable; (b) is less negatively affected by permanent changes in the consumer's utility function; and (c) is less adversely affected by error in the reservation threshold to which consumers compare a recommended product's utility. The K‐mean agent reaches a lower asymptote but approaches it faster, reflecting a surprising stickiness of target classifications after feedback from recommendations made under initial (incorrect) hypotheses.