Associations between parental educational/occupational levels and cognitive performance in Spanish adolescents: the AVENA study

We examined the associations between parental educational/occupational levels and cognitive performance in Spanish adolescents. Cognitive performance was measured by a validated Scholar Aptitudes test in 2,162 participants. Parental educational and occupational levels were positively associated with all specific cognitive abilities and the overall score (p<001 to .04). The odds ratios of having a high cognitive performance (top quartile) in adolescents with high parental educational level were 1.6 to 1.7 times higher than for those with a low parental educational level. Similarly, the odds ratios were 1.9 to 2.4 times higher for adolescents with high parental occupational level. These findings suggest an association between parental educational/occupational levels and cognitive performance in Spanish adolescents and support the parents' role in the creation of a stimulating intellectual environment.     

Audition dominates vision in duration perception irrespective of salience,attention, and temporal discriminability

Whereas the visual modality tends to dominate over the auditory modality in bimodal spatial perception, the auditory modality tends to dominate over the visual modality in bimodal temporal perception. Recent results suggest that the visual modality dominates bimodal spatial perception because spatial discriminability is typically greater for the visual than for the auditory modality; accordingly, visual dominance is eliminated or reversed when visual-spatial discriminability is reduced by degrading visual stimuli to be equivalent or inferior to auditory spatial discriminability. Thus, for spatial perception, the modality that provides greater discriminability dominates. Here, we ask whether auditory dominance in duration perception is similarly explained by factors that influence the relative quality of auditory and visual signals. In contrast to the spatial results, the auditory modality dominated over the visual modality in bimodal duration perception even when the auditory signal was clearly weaker, when the auditory signal was ignored (i.e., the visual signal was selectively attended), and when the temporal discriminability was equivalent for the auditory and visual signals. Thus, unlike spatial perception, where the modality carrying more discriminable signals dominates, duration perception seems to be mandatorily linked to auditory processing under most circumstances.     

Differences in performance in CAMCOG-R domains between old and oldest old patients with Alzheimer’s disease

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the neuropsychological performance in a ≥90-year-old population with Alzheimer disease (AD) in comparison with younger elderly patients. We retrospectively studied all patients with AD attended in a specialized clinic between 1999 and 2011. Age, sex, educational level, and sensory loss data were collected. Neuropsychological evaluation included Mini-Mental State Examination and Global Deterioration Scale. We used the eight Cambridge Cognitive Assessment (CAMCOG-R) domains to evaluate and compare the neuropsychological performance in the younger than 90 years old (<90) and older than 90 years old (≥90) groups. We selected 2931 patients, 2897 <90 (98.83%) and 34 ≥90 years old (1.17%). The ≥90 group had significant lower punctuations in memory, praxis, and abstract thinking CAMOCG-R domains with 1.49, 0.75, and 0.58 less points, respectively, (p < 0.05). Neuropsychological characteristics of cognitive decline seem to be different in ≥90 compared to <90 years old patients. According to age, the biggest differences in the CAMCOG-R performance are in the memory, praxis, and abstract thinking domains.     

Posttraumatic Growth in Children and Adolescents Exposed to the 2010 Earthquake in Chile and Its Relationship with Rumination and Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms

The aim of this study was to assess a predictive model of posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic stress symptoms in children and adolescents exposed to the earthquake in Chile in 2010. 325 children (47.4% male), aged between 10 and 15 years, were surveyed 12 months after the earthquake. The following tests were administered: the posttraumatic growth inventory for children in its brief version of Kilmer et al., the child PTSD symptom scale of Foa et al., the rumination scale for children of Crider et al., along with a scale to assess the trauma severity and a socio-demographic questionnaire. The model was assessed through a path analysis, which showed that deliberate rumination mediated the relationship between trauma severity and intrusive rumination with posttraumatic growth, that intrusive rumination mediated the relationship between the severity of the event and posttraumatic stress symptoms and that the latter mediated the relationship between intrusive rumination and posttraumatic growth. The sex was included as control variable in the path model. The final model achieved adequate fit indexes. The relevance of rumination processes for the development of the psychological consequences in children and adolescents following a natural disaster and their implications for clinical is discussed.     

Epistemological transformation for a sustainable and transdisciplinary university: The experience at the university of veracruz

This article presents a brief history of the development of the Western university and the individuation of disciplines. It discusses the phenomenal specialization that has occurred since the 19th century, and the lack of correlative synthesis of the disparate fields of knowledge, which increasingly has come under critique. We explore the transdisciplinary experience that has been developing over the last few years in the University of Veracruz, in particular with regards to the Program for Transdisciplinarity, Dialogue of Knowing Styles and Sustainability, a co-construction of a set of actions that foster a transformation of university academics by means of deep dialogue and a transdisciplinary re-learning process.     

Positive vs. negative switching barriers: the influence of service consumers' need for variety

• In this study, we deal with the existing debate related to the establishment of switching barriers retaining customers in the relationship with a provider. In particular, we demonstrate that ‘positive’ switching barriers (relational benefits) play a greater role that the ‘negative’ ones (switching costs and availability and attractiveness of other providers' offers) in determining customer satisfaction and retention. On the other hand, we include customers' need for variety in the proposed model, in order to demonstrate that a higher level of this psychological trait will lead to a lower perception of the existence of switching barriers. The hypotheses proposed have been tested for a services context on a sample of 800 individuals, using the technique ‘Partial Least Squares’ (PLS). Our findings lead to some interesting managerial implications.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new model of sportive cooperation and its evaluation by means a questionnaire

We present in this paper the sportive cooperation as a theoretical framework for the teams' dynamics, and as an alternative to others theories, specially the sportive cohesion. This theory has a double basis: 1) The rational and utilitarist decision taking upon the personal cooperation or not, with the team's goal, based on the internal teammates interaction, and the environmental stimuli; and 2) A personal, and more stable, disposition to cooperate, despite the possibility of obtain any counterparts for this behavior. From this framework, we have build--in a three phase process--a questionnaire addressed to evaluate the sportive cooperation. The final version--composed of 15 items with standard psychometric propierties--shows two kinds of factors. First, we have two dispositional, traitlike, factors: The Conditional cooperation, and the Unconditional cooperation. Second, we have three situational factors: the Cooperation with the Coach, with the teammates, and the Cooperation outside the game and the training. Lastly, we discuss the maining of this theory respect to the sportive team's dynamics, and its relevance for the applied psychology, both for the evaluation and the interventions on the teams.     

On the validity of validity scales: the importance of defensive responding in the prediction of institutional misconduct

This study examined the effects of defensive responding on the prediction of institutional misconduct among male inmates (N = 349) who completed the Personality Assessment Inventory (L. C. Morey, 1991). Hierarchical logistic regression analyses demonstrated significant main effects for the Antisocial Features (ANT) scale as well as main effects for the Positive Impression Management (PIM) scale in some instances. Significant ANT x PIM interactions also were evident, particularly when examining recommended cut scores on these scales. These results demonstrate the predictive validity of ANT with prisoners and reinforce the importance of context when considering whether validity scales are in fact valid.     

Trait emotional intelligence profiles of students from different university faculties

This study investigated the trait emotional intelligence (trait EI or trait emotional self‐efficacy) profiles of 512 students from five university faculties: technical studies, natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, it was hypothesised that (a) social sciences would score higher than technical studies in Emotionality, (b) arts would score higher than technical studies in Emotionality, (c) arts would score lower than technical studies in Self‐control, and (d) there would be an interaction between gender and faculty, whereby female students would score higher than male students within the social sciences only. Several other exploratory comparisons were also performed. Results supported hypotheses (a), (b), and (d), but not hypothesis (c), although the differences were in the predicted direction.