Development and validation of the Granada Burnout Questionnaire in Spanish police

The goal of the present study is to develop a questionnaire, with proper psychometric properties and current norms, to evaluate the burnout syndrome in Spain. The operative definition of burnout proposed by Maslach and Jackson is used to define three dimensions (Emotional exhaustion, Depersonalization and Personal accomplishment). A total of 2,403 national Spanish police participated. Evidence of construct validity was checked through cross validation (showing a good fit of the three factors model to the data). Using the MBI, NEO-FII and CECAD evidence of convergent validity and criteria validity were developed (showing that the relations are similar to the ones that appear in other research). The discrimination, mean, standard deviation, and typical error of the average of the items composing the various dimensions were analyzed. Both the Cronbach's alpha coefficient and the conditional standard error of measurement (CSEM) were calculated for each of the dimensions. The results showed good internal consistency (all α values > .85). Finally, the questionnaire was scaled using T scores. The psychometrical properties reported here support the use of this new questionnaire for the burnout evaluation in Spanish police.     

Elementos cognitivos y otros en el sistema de la personalidad

Resumen

Se señalan las raíces y antecedentes históricos para el estudio de los componentes cognitivos del sistema de la personalidad en la triple área de una psicología diferencial de los estilos cognitivos y otras diferencias cognitivas entre personas, de la psicología del concepto de sí mismo, y de las interpretaciones cognitivas de procesos adaptativos y dinámicos. A continuación, se exponen los nuevos temas que, integrados a los anteriores, pueden configurar hoy una psicología cognitiva de la personalidad. Pero, sobre la base de la multiplicidad de fenómenos y estructuras comprendidas en el sistema de la personalidad, se rechaza la pretensión de que categorías puramente cognitivas puedan, por si solas, dar razón de dicho sistema.     

El Keymath Diagnostic Arihmetic Test como instrumento para la intervención psicopedagógica: una revisión

Resumen

Desde un marco ecléctico sobre la evaluación psicopedagógica se revisan las investigaciones realizadas sobre el Key-Math Diagnostic Arithmetic Test desde su construcción hasta la actualidad. Dichas investigaciones se han agrupado en cinco líneas: Propiedades psicométricas para la evaluación del rendimiento, utilización en programas instruccionales, estudios con poblaciones especiales, estudios relacionados con el desarrollo cognitivo y estudios sobre versiones revisadas.     

Solution‐Focused Therapy as a Culturally Acknowledging Approach With American Indians

Limited literature is available applying specific theoretical orientations with American Indians. Solution‐focused therapy may be appropriate, given the client‐identified solutions, the egalitarian counselor/client relationship, the use of relationships, and the view that change is inevitable. However, adaption of scaling questions and the miracle question may be necessary. Hay una limitada cantidad de literatura disponible que aplique orientaciones teóricas específicas con indios americanos. La terapia centrada en soluciones puede ser apropiada, dadas las soluciones identificadas por los clientes, la relación igualitaria entre consejero y cliente, el uso de relaciones y la visión de que el cambio es inevitable. Sin embargo, puede que sea necesario adaptar las preguntas de escala y la pregunta del milagro.     

Reconnaissance en traduction et homographie interlangue

Several studies on bilingual word recognition have shown effects of word similarity between languages. Cognate words (translation equivalents with identical or near-identical forms like LIBRE in French and Spanish) are generally recognized and translated faster than non-cognates (translation equivalents with different forms). In this study, a translation recognition task (de Groot, 1992) was used in which participants (French-Spanish bilinguals) had to decide whether two words presented on a computer screen were translations or not. In Experiment 1, translation equivalents were identical cognates (same form: CIVIL-CIVIL [civil in Spanish]) and non-cognates (different forms: DANSE-BAILE [dance in Spanish]). All non-translation equivalents had different forms (TABLE [table in French]-AMIGO [friend in Spanish]). We observed a facilitation effect for cognate pairs which were processed faster than non-cognate pairs. In Experiment 2, we used the same material for translation equivalents (cognates and non-cognates) and two types of non-translation equivalents: interlingual homographs (same form but different meanings: CREER [create in French]-CREER [believe in Spanish]) and non-homographic non-translation pairs (different forms between languages) as used in Experiment 1. When the non-translation pairs shared the same form (interlingual homographs), they were rejected more slowly than other non-translation pairs. Moreover, contrary to Experiment 1, due to the presence of interlingual homographs in the experimental lists, the facilitation effect for cognate pairs was not replicated. The results suggest that all homographs (cognates and interlingual homographs) have a special status in bilingual memory (due to their lexical and/or semantic overlap) but their processing also depends on task demands and experimental list composition. Our results are in line with the distributed conceptual feature model of bilingual memory ( [de Groot, 1992] and [van Hell et de Groot, 1998] ). This model can explain facilitation and inhibition effects due to different overlaps between words (in both lexical and semantic levels). However, our results lead us to distinguish identification processes and decisional processes in this task as described in the BIA+ model (Dijkstra and van Heuven, 2002).     

La croyance au monde juste comme facteur explicatif de diverses réactions à des injustices professionnelles

The belief in a just world is defined as the tendency to consider that “people get what they deserve and deserve what they get”, i.e. to consider that the world is, globally, a place of justice. Facing an individual unjustly victim of negative events and for whom it seems impossible to restore the justice objectively, we frequently deny the existence of the unjustice, even if we say the responsible of what he gets. But if we can react by adopting “passive” reactions (using the victim’s moral or behavioral responsibility, as in Lerner, or evocating a future favoring the victim,..), we can also adopt “active” strategies which can lead to an objective re-establishment of the justice. In the present study, we examined the influence of the degree of the belief in the just world on the selected strategy facing professional injustices. And effectively, our results indicate a some preferences in the use of such or strategy, preferences accentuated by the gender and the professional statute.     

Physiological activity in an attribute learning task.

The relationship between the amount of information processing in an Attribute Learning task and autonomic activity, measured by skin conductance response (SCR), was investigated. The amount of information processing was manipulated by type of concept and feedback. Furthermore, the influence of practice and verbalization was studied.Three types of concepts were used: conjunction, exclusion and joint denial. The stimulus population consisted of four three-valued dimensions. The results showed that (1) SCR did not differ among concepts; (2) SCR varied with type of feedback, it being smallest at blanks and largest at infirming feedback; (3) SCR was related to the number of confirmations preceding infirmation; (4) subjects mainly used the strategy ‘reject hypothesis only after infirmation’; (5) subjects usually selected not-yet-tested hypotheses; (6) practice influenced performance; (7) verbalization did not result in more efficient use of information; however, the appropriateness of the experimental set-up to study this factor was questioned; (8) conjunction was easier to learn than the other concepts. The results were discussed in terms of uncertainty reduction, resulting from testing hypotheses in a concept learning task.