Evaluation of Affect in Mexico and Spain: Psychometric Properties and Usefulness of an Abbreviated Version of the Day Reconstruction Method

The aims of the present study were to assess the psychometric properties of the Spanish-language version of the abbreviated Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), and to investigate differences in affective experience in Mexico and Spain. A total of 2,629 adults from Mexico and 4,583 from Spain were interviewed. Information was obtained using an abbreviated version of the DRM, which had been translated into Spanish. Reliability, validity, and the structure of affect were assessed and compared between countries. The diurnal variation of affect, the changes in affect along the life span, time use, and the relationship between affect and socio-demographic characteristics were also analysed. Adequate psychometric properties for the Spanish-language version of the abbreviated DRM were found in both the Mexican and the Spanish samples, and affect tended to improve along the life span in both countries. However, net affect did not have the same distribution function (Kolmogorov–Smirnov statistic = 0.25, p < 0.001) in both countries, being higher in Spain. Moreover, both samples showed opposite patterns in the diurnal variation of affect. The results showed that the Spanish-language version of the DRM is a feasible and valid method to measure affect, its diurnal rhythms, and time use in large-scale surveys.     

ABA and ABC Renewal during Ongoing Omission Training

The Psychological Record - Renewal is one form of behavioral relapse in which a previously reduced response reemerges following a contextual change. Renewal is prevalent during clinical...     

It’s a Matter of Organizational Pride: How Perceptions of Organizational Virtuousness and Competence Affect Employee Behaviors

Journal of Business and Psychology - Companies often discuss the importance of organizational pride and what they believe leads to it, yet research on this topic in the organizational sciences has...     

The Role of Parents’ School Climate Perceptions on Attainment Expectations for Black Middle Schoolers

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Parents’ beliefs about their children’s schools are important influences on their parenting and on their children’s outcomes. Because of...     

Validation of the Karitane Parenting Confidence Scale in Measuring Parental Self-Efficacy of Australian Fathers

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Parental Self Efficacy (PSE) is a key predictor of positive parenting practices and child outcomes. The Karitane Parenting Confidence Scale (KPCS) is a global...     

African American Children’s Racial Discrimination Experiences and Mental Health

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The current study examined how African American children’s experiences of perceived personal racial discrimination and perceived vicarious racial...     

Distributional learning has immediate and long-lasting effects

Evidence of distributional learning, a statistical learning mechanism centered on relative frequency of exposure to different tokens, has mainly come from short-term learning and therefore does not ostensibly address the development of important learning processes. The present longitudinal study examines both short- and long-term effects of distributional learning of phonetic categories on non-native sound discrimination over a 12-month period. Two groups of listeners were exposed to a two-minute distribution of auditory stimuli in which the most frequently presented tokens either approximated or exaggerated the natural production of the speech sounds, whereas a control group listened to a piece of classical music for the same length of time. Discrimination by listeners in the two distribution groups improved immediately after the short exposure, replicating previous results. Crucially, this improvement was maintained after six and 12 months, demonstrating that distributional learning has long-lasting effects.     

Comparing Holographic Reprocessing and Prolonged Exposure for Women Veterans with Sexual Trauma: A Pilot Randomized Trial

This pilot study compares an emerging evidence-based treatment, holographic reprocessing (HR) to prolonged exposure (PE) versus a person-centered (PC) control group to treat symptoms of distress in female Veterans with sexual trauma. In contrast to PE, HR does not include exposure to a target event of trauma. Instead, HR focuses on healing the internal working model or type of attachment style that may form as a result of interpersonal trauma or maltreatment. The model reveals how people perceive themselves and others. These perceptions set in motion emotional, cognitive, and behavioral tendencies wherein people unconsciously replicate similar types of relationships that reinforce their worldview. Fifty-one female Veterans with sexual trauma were randomly assigned to one of three treatments and completed pre- and post-treatment measures of psychiatric symptoms (anxiety, depression, and PTSD) and post-traumatic cognitions. ANOVAs found significant decreases on all variables. Post-hoc comparisons revealed that HR and PE treatments demonstrated significantly greater decreases in symptoms compared to the PC control group. Chi square analyses revealed that HR produced a significantly lower dropout rate 1 (6 %) compared to PE 7 (41 %) and PC 6 (35 %). These initial results are promising and further investigation of HR is warranted.     

Exploring the Hierarchical Structure of the MMPI–2–RF Personality Psychopathology Five in Psychiatric Patient and University Student Samples

In this study our goal was to examine the hierarchical structure of personality pathology as conceptualized by Harkness and McNulty's (1994) Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY–5) model, as recently operationalized by the MMPI–2–RF (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2011) PSY–5r scales. We used Goldberg's (2006) “bass-ackwards” method to obtain factor structure using PSY–5r item data, successively extracting from 1 to 5 factors in a sample of psychiatric patients (n = 1,000) and a sample of university undergraduate students (n = 1,331). Participants from these samples had completed either the MMPI–2 or the MMPI–2–RF. The results were mostly consistent across the 2 samples, with some differences at the 3-factor level. In the patient sample a factor structure representing 3 broad psychopathology domains (internalizing, externalizing, and psychoticism) emerged; in the student sample the 3-factor level represented what is more commonly observed in “normal-range” personality models (negative emotionality, introversion, and disconstraint). At the 5-factor level the basic structure was similar across the 2 samples and represented well the PSY–5r domains.