Argentine validation of the Purpose in Life Test / Validación argentina del Test de Propósito en la Vida

Despite the fact that the Purpose in Life Test developed by James Crumbaugh and Leonard Maholick in the 1960s is considered to be one of the most commonly used measures in positive psychology, there are no validations of it into the Argentine context. This paper aims to assess the psychometric properties of PIL in a sample of 336 university students residing in Buenos Aires. The results suggest that PIL has adequate psychometric properties for the Argentine context. The confirmatory factor analysis presents a good fit of the data as proposed by the authors. These results favour the assessment of psychological well-being in this local context. Future studies should use different samples in order to provide more robust support to the construct.     

The Emotion Regulation Strategies of Adolescents and their Parents: An Experience Sampling Study

Parents are the main socialization agents in the development of emotion regulation (ER). In this study, we evaluated adolescents’ and their respective parents’ perspectives about their use of two ER strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) in daily life. In addition, we evaluated the within-family associations between adolescents’ and their parents’ use of strategies. We controlled for adolescents’ gender and age and the perceived quality of their relationships with their parents (mothers and fathers). The sample consisted of 33 12- to 18-year-old adolescent–father–mother triads, totaling 99 participants. Parents and adolescents reported their use of ER strategies in response to eight random prompts throughout the day, by means of the experience sampling method for 1 week. Participants provided 4082 reports on their momentary experiences. The data were analyzed using multilevel modeling to account for the hierarchical structure of the repeated daily assessments. The significant association between parents’ and adolescents’ use of ER strategies was specific to mother–adolescent dyads. The significant association between adolescents’ and their mothers’ ER strategies varied as a function of the adolescents’ age and the quality of their relationship with their mothers according to adolescents’ reports, but not as a function of adolescent gender. These findings suggest that mothers have a role in their adolescents’ emotion regulation in a developmental period characterized by autonomy from parental guidance.     

The role of semantic memory in short-term recall: effect of strategic retrieval ability in an elderly population

The present paper examines the relationship between two classic phenomena: semantic effects in short-term recall (STR) tasks, which are interpreted as indicating the involvement of long-term memory (LTM) in the functioning of short-term memory, on the one hand, and the existence of individual differences amongst elderly people in strategic retrieval ability (i.e., the ability to activate representations in LTM in a controlled way) on the other hand. Forty elderly participants completed a STR task under four different conditions which were thought to differentially involve LTM representations. Several executive functions, among which the strategic retrieval ability, were evaluated. The results showed that the participants who obtained the best performances in terms of strategic retrieval ability, and only in this executive ability, also exhibited better performances in the STR task, in particular when this task was performed under conditions which favored the use of LTM.     

The effect of spatial-frequency filtering on the visual processing of global structure

In three experiments we measured reaction times (RTs) and error rates in identifying the global structure of spatially filtered stimuli whose spatial-frequency content was selected by means of three types of 2-D isotropic filters (Butterworth of order 2, Butterworth of order 10, and a filters with total or partial Gaussian spectral profile). In each experiment, low-pass (LP), bandpass (BP), and high-pass (HP) filtered stimuli, with nine centre or cut-off spatial frequencies, were used. Irrespective of the type of filter, the experimental results showed that: (a) RTs to stimuli with low spatial frequencies were shorter than those to stimuli with medium or high spatial frequencies, (b) RTs to LP filtered stimuli were nearly constant, but they increased in a nonmonotonic way with the filter centre spatial frequency in BP filtered stimuli and with the filter cut-off frequency in HP filtered stimuli, and (c) the identification of the global pattern occurred with all visible stimuli used, including BP and HP images without low spatial frequencies. To remove the possible influence of the energy, a fourth experiment was conducted with Gaussian filtered stimuli of equal contrast power (c(rms) = 0.065). Similar results to those described above were found for stimuli with spatial-frequency content higher than 2 cycles deg(-1). A model of isotropic first-order visual channels collecting the stimulus spectral energy in all orientations explains the RT data. A subsequent second-order nonlinear amplitude demodulation process, applied to the output of the most energetic first-order channel, could explain the perception of global structure of each spatially filtered stimulus, including images lacking low spatial frequencies.     

Tactile sensitivity in Asperger syndrome

People with autism and Asperger syndrome are anecdotally said to be hypersensitive to touch. In two experiments, we measured tactile thresholds and suprathreshold tactile sensitivity in a group of adults with Asperger syndrome. In the first experiment, tactile perceptual thresholds were measured. Two frequencies of vibrotactile stimulation were used: 30 and 200 Hz. The results demonstrated significantly lower tactile perceptual thresholds in the Asperger group at 200 Hz but not at 30 Hz, thus confirming tactile hypersensitivity but only for one class of stimulus. A second experiment investigated whether self-produced movement affected the perception of touch in a group of adults with Asperger syndrome. A suprathreshold tactile stimulus was produced either by the participant (self-produced condition) or by the experimenter (externally produced condition) and participants were asked to rate the perception of the tactile stimulation. The results demonstrated that, while both Asperger and control groups rated self-produced touch as less tickly than external touch, the Asperger group rated both types of tactile stimulus as significantly more tickly and intense than did the control group. This experiment confirms the finding of tactile hypersensitivity, but shows that the perceptual consequences of self-produced touch are attenuated in the normal way in people with Asperger syndrome. An abnormality in this process cannot therefore account for their tactile hypersensitivity.     

Item selection rules in a Computerized Adaptive Test for the assessment of written English

Item selection rules in a Computerized Adaptive Test for the assessment of written English. e-CAT is a Computerized Adaptive Test for the evaluation of written English knowledge, using the item selection rule most commonly employed: the maximum Fisher information criterion. Some of the problems of this criterion have a negative impact in the estimation accuracy and in the item bank security. In this study, the performance of this item selection rule is compared, by means of simulation, with two other rules: selecting the item with maximum Fisher information in an interval (Veerkamp y Berger, 1997) and a new criterion, called "maximum Fisher information in an interval with geometric mean". In general, this new rule shows smaller measurement error and smaller item overlap rates. It seems, thus, recommendable, as it allows the simultaneous improvement of estimation accuracy and the maintenance of the item bank security of e-CAT.     

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?     

How do respondents construe ambiguous response formats of affect items?

Ambiguous response formats predict correlations from -.467 to -1 between opposite items, depending on whether the respondent's interpretation of the format is unipolar or bipolar. The authors present a procedure to investigate the proper interpretation in each case. It consists of applying nonparametric and parametric item response theory models (the Mokken and the graded response models) to pairs of opposite items in order to find the locations of the response options along the latent scale and, therefore, identify the response format construction. The authors tested this procedure on 4 samples (Ns=142-1,150) and 2 item pairs ("relaxed"-"tense" and "optimistic"-"pessimistic"). The results revealed that respondents constructed the formats as bipolar and supported the bipolarity of the item pairs.     

Relation between resilience and personality traits: The role of hopelessness and age

Resilience refers to the process by which individuals use the ability to cope with challenges to successfully adapt to adverse situations, inclining towards the future and hope. The main aim of this study was to analyze the relation between resilience, personality traits, and hopelessness. Furthermore, we conducted comparisons between two age groups: young and older adults. The sample comprised 439 Spanish participants (66.7% women; M = 43.73, SD = 26.41; age range = 18–98 years). The Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, NEO-Five Factor Inventory, and Beck Hopelessness Scale were used to measure the main study variables. The results revealed a negative relation between resilience and neuroticism, and a positive association with the other personality traits. Additionally, levels of resilience were found to be negatively related to hopelessness. The group of older adults showed significantly lower resilience levels than the young adults, although age was not a significant predictor of resilience. Neuroticism, extraversion, openness, and hopelessness were the only predictors of resilience for the current study. This work contributes to the study of resilience and related factors, by attempting to understand the role of resilience and resistance to risk and how individuals tackle challenges over time, with important implications for mental health.