Stress in mothers of individuals with autistic spectrum disorders

The aim of this study was to analyze maternal stress in families of individuals with autism. We proposed a multi-factorial and global model based on the Double ABCX model of family stress (McCubbin & Patterson, 1983) in which, the factor aA (stressor) interacts with bB (social support) and cC (perception of stress or, in our study, sense of coherence, SOC) to produce the dependent factor xX (level of stress). Thirty-nine mothers with children diagnosed on Autistic Spectrum disorders completed four questionnaires relating to the factors. The data were statistically analyzed using path analysis. The results showed that the empirical data fitted the theoretically proposed model well. There existed a direct and positive relationship between stressor and stress. Social support and SOC had a direct and negative relationship to stress, and functioned as modulating variables.     

The functioning of central categories Middle Level and Sometimes in graded response scales: does the label matter?

The present study evaluates the extent to which central categories explicitly labeled as being in the middle of the other response categories, specifically Middle Level and Sometimes, function as expected according to the integer scoring system. The assumptions are tested by means of Bock's Nominal Model in two 5-response scales. Results show that the assumption of the ordering of the response categories is met for all the items. The ordering of thresholds is satisfied for all but one item with the central category Middle Level . Results are compared with those obtained when middle categories are not explicitly labeled as being in the middle of the other response categories, as in the case of Not Sure , Undecided or?     

Adaptation of Child's Report of Parent Behavior Inventory for a Spanish population

This study presented an adaptation in Spanish of the Child's Reports of Parental Behavior Inventory (CRPBI) . The CRPBI is an instrument that allows us to assess family discipline perceived by children in the relation with their mothers and with their fathers. It's considered a good instrument to assess the perceptions that children have of parent behavior. The Spanish adaptation has been carried out with a sample of 1,274 Spanish adolescents (males and females) from different educational centers of the Valencian Community (13-18 years). The results show that affect, support and control are the main dimensions in the perceived child rearing styles of parents in our population.     

Construction and validation of a multidimensional model of students' adjustment to college context

This article presents a model of interaction of personal and contextual variables in the prediction of academic performance and psychosocial development of Portuguese college students. The sample consists of 560 first-year college students of the University of Minho. The path analysis results suggest that initial expectations of the students' involvement in academic life constituted an effective predictor of their involvement during their first year; as well as the social climate of the classroom influenced their involvement, well-being and levels of satisfaction obtained. However, these relationships were not strong enough to influence the criterion variables integrated in the model (academic performance and psychosocial development). Academic performance was predicted by the high school grades and college entrance examination scores, and the level of psychosocial development was determined by the level of development showed at the time they entered college. Though more research is needed, these results point to the importance of students' pre-college characteristics when we are considering the quality of their college adjustment process.     

Prejudice and attitudes of acculturation: perspectives of autochthonous and immigrants

This study is framed in a wider research on the acculturation process through a new acculturation model. The aim of this paper is to analyse the mutual prejudice between ethnic groups in contact and its relation to their preferred acculturation attitude. A questionnaire composed by various scales was given to four groups of people living in municipalities with high rate of African immigrants in Almería: Maghrebis, Sub-Saharans, Spaniards who evaluated the Maghreb out-group and Spaniards who responded on the Sub-Saharan out-group. The results obtained indicate a relation between prejudice and acculturation attitude, as the lowest scores in prejudice are hold in each group by people preferring integration , whilst the highest ones come from those who bow to exclusion/marginalisation.     

A Chilean version of the Efficient Personality Questionnaire for Adolescents

This investigation aims at adapting the test for Efficient Personality in educational contexts to Chilean reality. This instrument measures the construct efficient personality , made up of four levels of the self: strengths, requests, challenges and relationships. The original version has 58 items. In order to adapt it to our reality, 30 items were modified. The instrument was applied to a sample of 594 third and fourth secondary level students from four educational institutions of Vi?a del Mar. The new version of the instrument (23 items) presents a .85 reliability coefficient. The factorial analysis shows a structure of four basic factors which explain 50.42 % of the total variance. These factors, which are very similar those proposed in the original instrument, are named as academic self realization, social self realization, solving efficiency, and self steem. The second order factors analysis reveals a single factors structure that explains 43,28 % of the total variance, thus confirming the presence of the only factor that would correspond to the efficient personality construct presented.     

Reconsolidation: a brief history, a retrieval view, and some recent issues

This review briefly traces some of the history of the phenomenon of what has come to be called "reconsolidation." The early findings of retrograde amnesia for an old but reactivated memory led to several interesting but largely behaviorally oriented studies. With only a few sporadic exceptions, research in the area languished until about 2000, when several articles caught the attention of the neuroscience community and led to a number of studies examining the phenomenon at several different levels of analysis. We consider several of the current issues generated by those studies, present a retrieval based model that may account for some findings, and indicate some possible new directions on this topic.     

Emotional intelligence as predictor of mental, social, and physical health in university students

This study examined the association between emotional intelligence (EI), anxiety, depression, and mental, social, and physical health in university students. The sample was made up of 184 university students (38 men and 146 women). El was evaluated by the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, and Palfai, 1995), which evaluates the three dimensions (Attention, Clarity, and Mood Repair). Anxiety was evaluated with the Trait Anxiety Questionnaire (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, and Jacobs, 1983) and depression with the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Rush, Shaw, and Emery, 1979). Mental, social, and physical health were evaluated with the SF-12 Health Survey (Ware, Kosinski, and Keller, 1996). Results showed that high Emotional Attention was positively and significantly related to high anxiety, depression, and to low levels of Role Emotional, Social Functioning, and Mental Health. However, high levels of emotional Clarity and Mood Repair were related to low levels of anxiety and depression, high Role Physical, Social Functioning, Mental Health, Vitality, and General Health. This study confirmed the predictive value of Attention, Clarity and Mood Repair regarding the levels of anxiety, depression, and areas related to mental, social, and physical health in university students.     

Personality dimensions and subjective well-being

This work examines the association between personality dimensions (extraversion and neuroticism) and subjective well-being. Subjective well-being is associated both with extraversion and neuroticism, and currently, neuroticism is generally considered the more important. A total of 368 students from the University of Rovira i Virgili completed the Extraversion and Neuroticism subscales of the revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck, Eysenck, and Barrett, 1985), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin, 1985), and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (Watson, Clark, and Tellegen, 1988). Regression analyses revealed the personality variable of neuroticism as one of the most important correlates of subjective well-being. Regression analyses also showed that 44% of the variance of subjective well-being was accounted for by neuroticism, whereas extraversion only explained 8% of the variance.