eCAT-Listening: design and psychometric properties of a computerized adaptive test on English Listening

In this study, eCAT-Listening, a new computerized adaptive test for the evaluation of English Listening, is described. Item bank development, anchor design for data collection, and the study of the psychometric properties of the item bank and the adaptive test are described. The calibration sample comprised 1.576 participants. Good psychometric guarantees: the bank is unidimensional, the items are satisfactorily fitted to the 3-parameter logistic model, and an accurate estimation of the trait level is obtained. As validity evidence, a high correlation was obtained between the estimated trait level and a latent factor made up of the diverse criteria selected. The analysis of the trait level estimation by means of a simulation led us to fix the test length at 20 items, with a maximum exposure rate of .40.     

Masculinity-femininity as a national characteristic and its relationship with national agoraphobic fear levels: Fodor's sex role hypothesis revitalized

Hofstede's dimension of national culture termed Masculinity-Femininity [. Cultures and organizations: software of the mind. London: McGraw-Hill] is proposed to be of relevance for understanding national-level differences in self-assessed agoraphobic fears. This prediction is based on the classical work of Fodor [. In: V. Franks & V. Burtle (Eds.), Women in therapy: new psychotherapies for a changing society. New York: Brunner/Mazel]. A unique data set comprising 11 countries (total N=5491 students) provided the opportunity of scrutinizing this issue. It was hypothesized and found that national Masculinity (the degree to which cultures delineate sex roles, with masculine or tough societies making clearer differentiations between the sexes than feminine or modest societies do) would correlate positively with national agoraphobic fear levels (as assessed with the Fear Survey Schedule-III). Following the correction for sex and age differences across national samples, a significant and large effect-sized national-level (ecological) r=+0.67 (P=0.01) was found. A highly feminine society such as Sweden had the lowest, whereas the champion among the masculine societies, Japan, had the highest national Agoraphobic fear score.     

A new measure of perfectionism: the Perfectionism Inventory

In this investigation, we produced a new 8-scale measure of perfectionism called the Perfectionism Inventory (PI) that is designed to capture the important constructs provided by 2 existing Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS; Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990; Hewitt & Flett, 1991b) measures, along with new perfectionism scales. In the results from 3 studies, we describe scale development, scale psychometric properties, and criterion-related validity evidence for the 8 PI scales: Concern Over Mistakes, High Standards for Others, Need for Approval, Organization, Parental Pressure, Planfulness, Rumination, and Striving for Excellence. We present relationships between the 8 PI scales, relevant MPS scales, and other criterion measures. Second-order exploratory and confirmatory analyses provide support for the 8-scale PI model as well as support for 2 composite PI factors labeled Conscientious Perfectionism and Self-Evaluative Perfectionism.     

Work–family conflicts,cognitive appraisal,and burnout: Testing the mediation effect with structural equation modelling

Work–family conflict constitutes an important source of occupational stress predicting teachers’ burnout, and cognitive variables have shown to be core structures in explaining human adaptation to stress. Nevertheless, the role of cognitive appraisal needs to be fully analysed to comprehend how it can mediate the relationship between stress and burnout. In order to understand the potential mediation of cognitive appraisal in the relationship between stress and burnout, we adopted conceptual models of stress that highlighted the value of cognitive appraisal on positive and negative reactions to work demands. Also, we analysed the potential moderation of sex and age in the relationship between work–family conflict, cognitive appraisal, and burnout due to inconsistent findings on how these personal variables can interfere on these relations. In this study, we used structural equation modelling (SEM) to test the mediating of cognitive appraisal in the relationship between work–family conflicts and burnout. A survey with measures of work–family conflicts, cognitive appraisal, and burnout was administered to the participants consisting of 438 Portuguese teachers from kindergarten through high school, aged between 28 and 67 years (M = 46.85; SD = 7.88), 304 of whom were females (69.41%). The results confirmed that cognitive appraisal partially mediated the relationship between work–family conflict and burnout. The mediation effect of cognitive appraisal on the relationship between work–family conflict and burnout was invariant regardless of teachers’ sex or age. In sum, cognitive appraisal should be considered in order to understand teachers’ adaptation to work.     

Creativity in Middle Childhood: Influence of Perceived Maternal Sensitivity,Self-esteem,and Shyness

This study aimed to examine the relationship between maternal sensitivity and affect, as perceived by the child, and childhood creativity. Self-esteem and shyness were considered mediating factors. A total of 151 elementary school pupils were tested on verbal and pictorial creativity, self-esteem, and perceived maternal affect and sensitivity. Their teachers assessed each child’s shyness in their relations at school. A Multiple Indicators and Multiple Causes (MIMIC) model of the causal relationships among the study’s variables was tested. Results supported this theoretical model of causality. Maternal sensitivity had a significant, direct, positive effect on self-esteem, and a direct negative effect on shyness. In addition, self-esteem had a direct positive effect on verbal creativity and shyness had a negative direct effect on verbal and pictorial creativity. The indirect effect of maternal sensitivity on verbal creativity was significant via both self-esteem and shyness. The findings were discussed in terms of their implications for child development.     

The Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children: Cross-Cultural Assessment with a New Self-Report Measure

This study describes a series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses that were conducted with the 44-item Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children- 4th version (SAQ-CIV) to identify a reduced set of items that might be used to construct a new abbreviated instrument for measuring social anxiety in children and adolescents. The fourth version of the Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children (SAQ-CIV) was administered to 12,801 non-clinical participants (ages 9 to 15 years) from 12 Latin American countries and Spain. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis supported a 6-factor structure of social anxiety in children, replicating a similar structure to that of adults (Caballo et al. in Behavioral Psychology/Psicología Conductual, 18(1), 5–34, 2010; Caballo et al. in Behavior Therapy, 43(2), 313–328, 2012): 1) Interactions with the opposite sex, 2) Criticism and embarrassment, 3) Speaking in public/Talking to teachers, 4) Assertive expression of annoyance and disgust, 5) Performing in public, and 6) Interactions with strangers. Each of the factors contains 4 items, yielding an abbreviated 24-item instrument, the Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children (SAQ-C). The present results suggest this is a reliable, valid, and culturally sensitive instrument to assess social anxiety in youth.     

Mapping the apetitive and aversive systems with emotional pictures using a block-design fMRI procedure

Negative emotional pictures from the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS) have been successful in mapping brain areas related to the aversive system. However, the capacity of positive emotional pictures to study the brain areas related to the appetitive system (i.e., nucleus accumbens, prefrontal cortex) is less established. In this study, we used a block fMRI design to investigate this issue, including emotional pictures as background while participants performed a vowel-consonant discrimination task. Importantly, participants were heterosexual males and all positive pictures were related to erotic couples, opposite-sex erotica, or romantic scenes. Negative pictures were similar to those used in previous studies. Results were consistent with previous studies using event-related designs, showing activation of amygdala, lateral prefrontal cortex, and occipito-temporal areas, but positive pictures showed a significant activation in the left nucleus accumbens. These findings provide evidence of the utility of block designs in emotional research (positive emotional pictures).     

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and its relationship with negative cognitive schemas in battered women

This study assessed the association between Posttraumatic Stress Disorder symptoms (PTSD) and maladaptive cognitive schemas among intimate partner violence victims. The sample comprised 114 women from specialized services for victims, who completed measures of physical aggression, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, PTSD, and cognitive schemas. Results showed that 67.54% of women met the diagnostic criteria of PTSD. These women endorsed higher levels of schemas related to mistrust/abuse, vulnerability to harm, defectiveness, shame, enmeshment, abandonment and dependence. A structural equation model showed that the relationship between violence and cognitive schemas was fully mediated by the PTSD symptoms. Finally, the clinical implications of the results are discussed.     

Intimate partner violence and depressive symptoms in women: cognitive schemas as moderators and mediators

In this study the role of cognitive schemas as moderators and mediators between intimate partner violence and depressive symptoms was examined. The sample consisted of 312 women who had suffered an abusive relationship. Participants completed measures of physical, psychological and sexual abuse, maladaptive cognitive schemas (disconnection and rejection, autonomy, and other-directedness), and depression. The evidence for a moderation effect was low and mainly restricted to schemas of the impaired autonomy domain. In contrast, the results supported mediational models in which violence was associated to the cognitive schemas, and these in turn were associated to depressive symptoms. Mediation was partial, with the schemas of the disconnection and rejection domain explaining most of the association between violence and depression. Finally, several explanations for these findings are examined, and their implications for the concept and measure of the cognitive schemas are discussed.     

Tool-composite reuse in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): archaeologically invisible steps in the technological evolution of early hominins?

Recent etho-archaeological studies of stone-tool use by wild chimpanzees have contributed valuable data towards elucidating the variables that influenced the emergence and development of the first lithic industries among Plio-Pleistocene hominins. Such data help to identify potential behaviours entailed in the first percussive technologies that are invisible in archaeological records. The long-term research site of Bossou in Guinea features a unique chimpanzee community whose members systematically use portable stones as hammers and anvils to crack open nuts in natural as well as in field experimental settings. Here we present the first analysis of repeated reuse of the same tool-composites in wild chimpanzees. Data collected over 5 years of experimental nut-cracking sessions at an “outdoor laboratory” site were assessed for the existence of systematic patterns in the selection of tool-composites, at group and at individual levels. Chimpanzees combined certain stones as hammer and anvil more often than expected by chance, even when taking into account preferences for individual stones by themselves. This may reflect an ability to recognise the nut-cracker as a single tool (composed of two elements, but functional only as a whole), as well as discrimination of tool quality-effectiveness. Through repeatedly combining the same pairs of stones—whether due to preferences for particular composites or for the two elements independently—tool-users may amplify use-wear traces and increase the likelihood of fracturing the stones, and thus of detaching pieces by battering.