Child sexual abuse coping and long term psychological adjustment

The aim of the study was to analyze the consequences of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) on the psychological adjustment of university students, as well as the way in which several avoidance and approach coping strategies affect that adjustment. The sample comprised 1162 students from the University of Granada. Data about CSA was obtained from a questionnaire developed with this aim. We used the How I Deal with Things Scale of Burt and Katz to evaluate coping strategies, whereas depression and self-esteem were assessed with the Beck Depression Inventory and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, respectively. Subjects who were victims of CSA showed significantly higher scores on depression and lower scores on self-esteem. An analysis of coping strategies revealed that only the use of avoidance strategies was related to psychological adjustment. Subjects who used these strategies obtained higher scores on depression and lower scores on self-esteem. These results confirm the idea of CSA as a risk experience that can affect victims' psychological adjustment, to a greater or lesser extent, according to the coping strategy employed.     

Absence of effect of the change of food context in the activity-based anorexia phenomenon in rats

The goal of this study was to analyse how the context in which animals remain during the period of access to food modulates the development of activity-based anorexia in rats. For this purpose, the effect of changing the context of the activity period and the eating period was measured in terms of body weight loss, reduction in food intake and increase in physical activity. A 2 yen 2 factorial design was implemented, by having or not having access to a running wheel, and by being exposed or not exposed to a context change. Results showed that exposure to different contexts for the wheel and for the food did not affect weight loss, food intake or activity levels. These results are in line with the theoretical position of Epling and Pierce (1992) that activity is induced by the food restriction regime.     

Sensitivity to pain, self-regulation, coping and personality in healthy adult women

The goals of this study were to investigate the relation between sensitivity to pain and subjectively perceived intensity of pain, and to establish which psychological variables affect lesser or greater objective sensitivity to experimental pain. The study sample consisted of 74 adult women without regular pain symptoms. Experimental pain was induced by means of the Portable Electronic Dolorimeter (DEP). Intensity of induced pain was evaluated using a Visual Analogic Scale (VAS). Psychological characteristics studied were self-government, stress-coping strategies, sensitivity to anxiety and the five personality dimensions evaluated by the BFQ of Caprara, Barbaranelli and Borgogni (1995). Results revealed a positive relation between sensitivity to pain and subjective intensity of pain. An analysis of variance also revealed statistically significant differences between groups with low and high sensitivity to pain in the following variables: self-motivation, focalization in problem-solving, positive reappraisal of stressful events, energy and mental openness. The importance of the study lies in the identification of specific psychological factors for intervention in the psychological treatment of pain.     

From residential care to school: peer relationships at school of minors in residential care

In this study, peer relationships of minors in residential care in a school context are analysed, both from the perspective of the peers and the teachers. Using a sociometric test and an evaluation protocol for teachers in 50 classrooms, a sample of 60 minors in care is compared to a normative sample of 843 minors. The results show that minors in residential care have a higher rate of rejection by their classmates in academic activities, but not for leisure ones. Furthermore, in comparison with the normative sample, they are more frequently described with negative adjectives. There is a high level of agreement between the peer evaluation and that of the teachers in the most visible aspects in the classroom. The implications of these results for the improvement of the adjustment of this group are discussed.     

Evaluation of three sensitivity measures in magnitude estimation tasks

Taking into account the studies about the measure of sensitivity in magnitude estimation tasks, we analyze the three most common measures used in this topic: Pearson's product-moment correlation between the logarithm of the stimulus and the logarithm of the response (R), the exponent of Stevens' power function (K), and the measure "M" proposed by Garriga-Trillo. Using a sample of participants greater than usual in psychophysical studies (180 participants), we designed an experiment with two sets of stimuli with different stimulus ranges. In each of these sets, we used two kinds of stimuli (line segments and squares). Our conclusions were: (1) we rejected the use of K as a sensitivity measure because the results provided by this index were the opposite of those expected when we compared the two stimulus ranges. (2) We also rejected the use of M because this measure is a linear transformation of Kendall's coefficient of concordance. (3) Lastly, we suggest the mathematical transformation proposed by Fisher to achieve a normal distribution, and recommend this transformation as the best sensitivity measure.     

Cognitive and linguistic skills in Swedish children with cochlear implants - measures of accuracy and latency as indicators of development

The purpose of the present study was to examine working memory (WM) capacity, lexical access and phonological skills in 19 children with cochlear implants (CI) (5;7-13;4 years of age) attending grades 0-2, 4, 5 and 6 and to compare their performance with 56 children with normal hearing. Their performance was also studied in relation to demographic factors. The findings indicate that children with CI had visuospatial WM capacities equivalent to the comparison group. They had lower performance levels on most of the other cognitive tests. Significant differences between the groups were not found in all grades and a number of children with CI performed within 1 SD of the mean of their respective grade-matched comparison group on most of the cognitive measures. The differences between the groups were particularly prominent in tasks of phonological WM. The results are discussed with respect to the effects of cochlear implants on cognitive development.     

Higher-Order Unification: A structural relation between Huet's method and the one based on explicit substitutions

We compare two different styles of Higher-Order Unification (HOU): the classical HOU algorithm of Huet for the simply typed λ-calculus and HOU based on the λσ-calculus of explicit substitutions. For doing so, first, the original Huet algorithm for the simply typed λ-calculus with names is adapted to the language of the λ-calculus in de Bruijn's notation, since this is the notation used by the λσ-calculus. Afterwards, we introduce a new structural notation called unification tree, which eases the presentation of the subgoals generated by Huet's algorithm and its behaviour. The unification tree notation will be important for the comparison between Huet's algorithm and unification in the λσ-calculus whose derivations are presented into a structure called derivation tree. We prove that there exists an important structural correspondence between Huet's HOU and the λσ-HOU method: for each (sub-)problem in the unification tree there exists a counterpart in the derivation tree. This allows us to conclude that the λσ-HOU is a generalization of Huet's algorithm and that solutions computed by the latter are always computed by the former method.     

Investment in body image for self-definition results in greater vulnerability to the thin media than does investment in appearance management

This study investigated the effect of thin images according to two dimensions of body-image (BI) investment. Ninety-five females were classified as high or low investors based on the Appearance Schemas Inventory-Revised Self-Evaluative Salience (SES) and Motivational Salience (MS) subscales. Participants viewed advertisements portraying either the thin ideal or products. Results indicated that both women high in SES and MS reported lowered appearance self-esteem but greater BI importance following thin exposures. However, only the high SES group reported greater BI dissatisfaction and importance of current-ideal discrepancies after seeing thin images. Although highly invested women (regardless of their motivation for investment) are more responsive to thin media images than are women low in investment, those invested for self-definition are affected on more dimensions than are those invested for appearance management.     

Social representations used by the parents of Mexican adolescent drug users under treatment to explain their children's drug use: gender differences in parental narratives

The aim of this study was to explore the social representations used by the parents of adolescent drug users to explain the onset of drug use. Differences in explanations between the parents of male and female adolescents were also explored. Sixty parents who accompanied their children to four rehabilitation centers in 2004 completed two semi-structured questionnaires. In addition, indepth interviews were applied to a subsample. The explanation of the drug use was carried out through two social representations: the neglectful family and the son or daughter as an inexperienced teen. The parents-son model was well structured; however, the parents-daughter was unstructured, which suggests a higher resonance in the familial group.     

Balancing concern for other with concern for self: links between unmitigated communion, communion, and psychological well-being

Previous research has demonstrated the importance of distinguishing between positive (communion) and negative (unmitigated communion) characteristics when investigating the relation between traditional feminine gender roles and psychological adjustment. However, previous work has relied on cross-sectional analysis of self-reported unmitigated communion and self-reported emotional distress. The present series of studies was designed to address this limitation by using multiple methodologies to examine the relation between unmitigated communion (UC) and psychological adjustment. Study 1 examined the relation between self- and peer reports in a sample of 102 college students. Study 2 examined the relation between communion, UC, and adjustment in a community sample of 94 adults using a 10-year longitudinal design. Study 3 used a daily diary methodology to examine the relation between these constructs, social functioning, and depressed mood in a sample of 78 college women. Results from the three studies converged to demonstrate that unmitigated communion is an important factor that impacts negatively on the psychological adjustment of men and women.