Dimensional structure of the Brief Symptom Inventory with Spanish college students

The Brief Symptom Inventory is designed to assess symptoms of psychological disorders in adolescents and adults. The dimensional structure of the inventory, using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, was examined with a cross-sectional design in a Spanish sample of college students ( N = 1,033, aged between 18 and 30 years old). Two hypotheses were tested: the original distribution of the items in nine factors, and the unidimensionality of the inventory. According to the results, a nine-factor structure seemed to be confirmed, although the strong intercorrelations found among the subscales indicated that these were measuring closely related constructs. The importance of cultural influences when assessing psychological symptoms and the need to develop national and sex norms for instruments that assess psychopathology, are also discussed.     

Preschool personality antecedents of narcissism in adolescence and young adulthood: A 20-year longitudinal study

This prospective study examined relations between preschool personality attributes and narcissism during adolescence and emerging adulthood. We created five a priori preschool scales anticipated to foretell future narcissism. Independent assessors evaluated the participants’ personality at ages 14, 18, and 23. Based upon these evaluations, we generated observer-based narcissism scales for each of these three ages. All preschool scales predicted subsequent narcissism, except Interpersonal Antagonism at age 23. According to mean scale and item scores analyses, narcissism increased significantly from age 14 to 18, followed by a slight but non-significant decline from age 18 to 23. The discussion focused on a developmental view of narcissism, the need for research on automatic processing and psychological defenses, and links between narcissism and attachment.     

The Moral Black Hole

It is commonly believed that people become selfish and turn to looting, price gouging, and other immoral behaviour in emergencies. This has been the basis for an argument justifying extraordinary measures in emergencies. It states that if emergencies are not curtailed, breakdown of moral norms threaten (‘the moral black hole’). Using the example of natural disasters, we argue that the validity of this argument in non-antagonistic situations, i.e. situations other than war and armed conflict, is highly questionable. Available evidence suggests that people in such emergencies typically do not display panic reactions or exaggerated selfishness, and that phenomena such as looting and price gouging are rare. Furthermore, a version of the moral-black-hole argument based on the mere possibility of a moral black hole occurring runs into problems similar to those of Pascal’s Wager. We conclude that we should be wary against applying the moral-black-hole argument to non-antagonistic cases.

Affirmation and Denial in Aristotle’s De interpretatione

Topoi - Modern logicians have complained that Aristotelian logic lacks a distinction between predication (including negation) and assertion, and that predication, according to the Aristotelians,...     

Probability of Stimulus Equivalence as a Function of Class Size vs. Number of Classes

The Psychological Record - Two experiments were conducted to study stimulus equivalence as a function of class size and number of classes. In the first experiment, equivalence was tested in 50...     

How is Self‐Forgiveness Possible?

The idea of self‐forgiveness poses a serious challenge to any philosopher interested in giving a general account of forgiveness. On the one hand, it is an uncontroversial part of our common psychological and moral discourse. On the other, any account of self‐forgiveness is inconsistent with any general account of forgiveness which implies that only the victim of an offense can forgive. To avoid this conclusion, one must either challenge the particular claims that preclude self‐forgiveness or offer an independently plausible account of self‐forgiveness. I deploy both strategies in this article, explaining what self‐forgiveness is and how it is possible.     

A longitudinal study of factors predicting students’ intentions to leave upper secondary school in Norway

Social Psychology of Education - This article illuminates factors predicting students’ intention to leave upper secondary school. The research is anchored in an ecological theoretical...     

DSM-IV Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms: Agreement Between Informants in Prevalence and Factor Structure at Different Ages

The agreement between teachers’ and parents’ ratings of the prevalence of DSM-IV attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and the concordance of the factor structure of ADHD symptoms was analyzed in a sample of 653 Spanish schoolchildren aged 4 to 12 divided into two age groups. The prevalence of ADHD symptoms ranged between 0.66 and 16.73% and was higher when the rater was the teacher. Agreement between parents and teachers was low. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) shows a slightly better fit for the three-factor model (Inattention, Hyperactivity and Impulsivity) than for the two-factor model (Inattention and Hyperactivity–impulsivity), except for parents’ ratings in the sample of children under six. CFA using a multitrait–multimethod model (CFA-MTMM) shows similar results.     

Evaluating Ethical Tools

This article reviews suggestions for how ethical tools are to be evaluated and argues that the concept of ethical soundness as presented by Kaiser et al. (2007) is unhelpful. Instead, it suggests that the quality of an ethical tool is determined by how well it achieves its assigned purpose(s). Those are different for different tools, and the article suggests a categorization of such tools into three groups. For all ethical tools, it identifies comprehensiveness and user‐friendliness as crucial. For tools that have reaching a decision in a democratic context as a main purpose, it identifies transparency, guiding users toward a decision and justification of the decision‐supporting mechanism. For tools that aim to engage the public, it identifies procedural fairness as essential. It also notes that the scope of use for ethical tools is limited to the same moral community, and that this feature is frequently overlooked.