The assessment of fitness to drive after a stroke: the Nordic Stroke Driver Screening Assessment

The British Stroke Driver Screening Assessment (SDSA) is a set of four simple cognitive tests to evaluate driving fitness in stroke patients. To evaluate its usefulness in a Scandinavian context, we adapted the tests and assessed a group of 97 stroke patients from Sweden and Norway, using a driving test as the criterion. When results were calculated according to the original method, based on a discriminant function, less than 70% of the participants were correctly classified. To improve the predictive potential, a new discriminant analysis was performed, using the scores of a subsample of 49 patients, and validated on the remaining 48 participants. In total, 78% of the patients were correctly classified, but specificity was superior to sensitivity. We conclude that the Nordic version of the SDSA is a useful instrument, provided that test scores are interpreted in a balanced manner, taking into account the possibility of compensatory traffic behavior.     

The mood effect in relation to impulsive online buying behavior

This article analyzes impulsive buying behavior in scenarios where the consumer's negative or positive mood, oriented by emotional situations, stimulates an uncontrolled instinct in relation to the purchase. Four experimental studies were carried out to evaluate the influence of the mood state on impulsivity in different scenarios of consumption: online versus face-to-face shopping (Study 1); product characteristics – hedonic versus utilitarian product types in online environments (Study 2); the individual characteristic of self-control in relation to the online purchase (Study 3a); and the individual characteristic of social value in relation to online consumption (Study 3b). The results demonstrate that consumers have greater impulsiveness within the online environment when they are in a positive mood, and that the positive mood maintains greater purchasing impulsiveness when the product is utilitarian, and when the consumer has low self-control and/or high social value individually.     

The sociology of sociobiology

This paper turns the tables on the criticisms of sociobiology that stem from a sociological perspective; many of those criticisms lack cogency and coherence in such measure as to demand, in their turn, a psycho‐sociological explanation rather than a rational justification. This thesis, after a brief exposition of the main ideas of sociobiology, is argued in terms of four of the most prominent complaints made against it. Far from embodying tired prejudices about the psychological and sociological implications of biology, sociobiology actually reverses a number of naive assumptions about the consequences of natural selection. I surmise that what really provokes the critics of sociobiology is a certain philosophical relevance of sociobiology both in the broad sense (the application of natural selection principles to behaviour) and in the narrow sense (the insistence on the centrality of certain mechanisms, such as gene selection). In both cases, taking biology seriously affects our philosophical vision of the nature of human beings. At the deepest level, however, the distinction between the level at which rational criteria apply and those where we must have recourse to psycho‐social explanations probably breaks down.     

Development and Psychometric Properties of the Self-Representation Questionnaire for Adolescents (SRQA)

Given the lack of validated measures of adolescents’ self-representation, in this paper we present the development process and psychometric properties of a new self-representation questionnaire for adolescents (SRQA), aged 12–16 year old. We examined SRQA factor structure through two studies. In the first study, 32 attributes (16 positive and 16 negative), previously validated in three studies, were administered to 239 adolescents (M = 13.8; SD = 1.28). An exploratory factor analysis showed that 21 attributes (13 positive and 8 negative) were organized in five factors: instrumental, social, emotional, intelligence, and physical appearance. In the second study, these 21 attributes were administered to 232 adolescents (M = 13.8; SD = 1.23). A confirmatory factor analysis supported the SRQA five factor model (Model fit: χ ²/df ratio = 2.392; CFI = .90; RMSEA = .08). Internal consistency was acceptable, ranging between .60 and .85. Girls displayed higher scores in the instrumental and social factors, whereas boys presented higher scores on the physical appearance factor. In line with previous research, results regarding age differences were inconsistent: while in Study 1 results suggested that as, age increases, adolescents’ intelligence self-representation becomes more negative, in Study 2 no age differences were found. Concurrent validity of the SRQA was explored through correlations with the Teacher Report Form, filled out by the adolescents’ homeroom teachers. Results revealed significant negative correlations between two dimensions of self-representation (i.e., instrumental and intelligence) and several dimensions of adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing problems, providing evidence of concurrent validity for the SRQA.     

Parenting and management skills: The mediator role of empathy

The present study aimed to test the effect of sex as well as the experience of parenting at the level of empathy and management skills and the mediating effect of empathy on the relationship between the experience of parenting and management skills. No differences were found between men and women concerning management skills. Women had higher empathy levels than men. Being a father or mother increased management skills and empathy levels. However, the experience of parenting interferes with management skills by increasing levels of empathy only in men. Career counselors need to considerer not only the processes inherent to each management task, but also the variables that intensify these competences, integrating emotional and relational dimensions.     

Questions about questions: New views on an old prejudice

The belief that good analysts do not ask, and do not answer, questions is a still-living strange recommendation, transmitted throughout psychoanalytic generations. The authors have extensively reviewed electronic databases and technical texts. They found that interrogative acts are largely omitted from technical considerations, generating a prejudice that does not consider questions as proper psychoanalytic tools, and they discuss possible foundations for this belief. The authors believe that the few authors that have touched on this issue have done so in a non-systematic and frequently incomplete form. Linguistic philosophy presents questions as speech acts : actions that are able to alter the equilibrium of dialogical discourses. This view permits psychoanalysts to understand the potentiality of questions to introduce psychic change because they can, simultaneously, interfere in the self, in the other and in the intersubjective relationship. An internal state of curiosity is described as a component of the mind of the analyst. Based on the argument of the ubiquity of the state of curiosity of the analyst, the authors carried out a set of technical propositions, regarding, on the one hand, when questions are not to be introduced (for instance, in the presence of free associations) and, on the other hand, when they would be useful as expanding factors of the preconscious-conscious system. Considering psychoanalyses as experiences of curiosity, they emphasize that both the internal state of curiosity of the analyst, and the eventual verbal questions put to the patient are potentially positive factors for psychic change. The authors present several clinical vignettes.     

The psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the Personality Inventory for DSM‐5

The DSM‐5 Section III proposes a hybrid dimensional‐categorical model of conceptualizing personality and its disorders that includes assessment of impairments in personality functioning (criterion A) and maladaptive personality traits (criterion B). The Personality Inventory for the DSM‐5 is a new dimensional tool, composed of 220 items organized into 25 facets that delineate five higher order domains of clinically relevant personality differences, and was developed to operationalize the DSM‐5 model of pathological personality traits. The current studies address the internal consistency (study 1), the test‐retest reliability (study 2) and the criterion validity (studies 3 and 4) of the Portuguese version of the PID‐5 in samples of native speaking psychology students. Results indicated good internal consistency reliabilities and good temporal stability reliabilities for the majority of the PID‐5 traits. The correlational pattern of the PID‐5 traits with two measures of personality was in accordance with theoretical expectations and showed its concurrent validity.     

Factor Structure,Internal Consistency and Criterion Validity of the Full‐form and Short‐form Versions of the Centrality of Events Scale in Young People

The perceived centrality of a traumatic event has been hypothesized to impact subsequent responses to that event and shown to be positively associated to a number of psychological problems. In order to understand the role of this construct in adjustment to stress and trauma, reliable and valid measures are needed. The objective of this study was to evaluate the factor structure, internal consistency and convergent validity of the full‐form and short‐forms of the Centrality of Event Scale when used with young people. A sample of 262 undergraduate students completed this study. Confirmatory factor analyses, Cronbach alpha coefficients and Pearson correlation coefficients were performed. The findings support a one‐factor structure of the full 20‐item and the short 7‐item versions. We also found that both versions provide reliable and valid scores when used with young people. We recommend the use of the 7‐item version to minimize assessment burden. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Memory abilities in Williams syndrome: Dissociation or developmental delay hypothesis?

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder often described as being characterized by a dissociative cognitive architecture, in which profound impairments of visuo-spatial cognition contrast with relative preservation of linguistic, face recognition and auditory short-memory abilities. This asymmetric and dissociative cognition has been also proposed to characterize WS memory ability, with sparing of auditory short-term memory and impairment of spatial and long-term memory abilities. In this study, we explored the possibility of a double memory dissociation in WS (short- versus long-term memory; verbal versus visual memory). Thus, verbal memory abilities were assessed using California Verbal Learning Test and Digit Span and Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure and Corsi Blocks was used to assess visual-spatial memory abilities. Overall, WS subjects were found to present a generalized significant impairment in verbal and visuo-spatial components either in short- or long-term memory. In sum, data from this study brings support for a developmental delay hypothesis, rather than a double dissociation within memory systems in WS.