Development and preliminary validation of a semi-structured interview for the screening of law enforcement candidates

A standard practice among most law enforcement agencies is to include psychological screening in the selection of job candidates. Although the use of personality tests in predicting job performance of law enforcement officers has received empirical support (e.g., the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the Inwald Personality Inventory), there is a conspicuous absence of data regarding the reliability and validity of interview procedures. The present study represents the first step in the development of a standardized, semi-structured interview for use in the screening of law enforcement personnel. This interview, the Law Enforcement Candidate Interview, was constructed using content areas drawn from measures used in the screening of law enforcement personnel (e.g., Inwald Personality Inventory) and assessment of personality functioning (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Personality Disorders). This interview was then administered by two doctoral students to a group of law enforcement academy cadets (n=34). A modest degree of inter-rater reliability was achieved, although internal consistency was somewhat lacking. Interview scores were correlated with measures of academy performance (final grade-point average and peer and supervisor ranking of academy performance). Results of these analyses suggest the LECI is a modest predictor of academy performance. Potential uses of the LECI and future research indications are outlined.     

The informational constraints of behavioral distraction by unexpected sounds: The role of event information

Sounds deviating from an otherwise repeated stream of task-irrelevant auditory stimuli (deviant sounds among standard sounds) are known to capture attention and impact negatively on ongoing behavioral performance (behavioral oddball distraction). Traditional views consider such distraction as the ineluctable consequence of the deviant sounds' low probability of occurrence relative to that of the standard. Contrary to this contention, recent evidence demonstrates that distraction by deviant sounds is not obligatory and occurs only when sounds (standards and deviants), though to be ignored, act as useful warning cues by providing information as to whether and when a target stimulus is to be presented (Parmentier, Elsley, & Ljungberg, 2010). The present study aimed to extend this finding by disentangling the roles of event information (target's probability of occurrence) and temporal information (target's time of occurrence). Comparing performance in a cross-modal oddball task where standard and deviant sounds provided temporal information, event information, both, or none, we found that distraction by deviant sounds emerged when sounds conveyed event information. These results suggest that unexpected changes in a stream of sounds yield behavioral distraction to the extent that standards and deviants carry relevant goal-directed information, specifically, the likelihood of occurrence of an upcoming target. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Quasivarieties and Congruence Permutability of ?ukasiewicz Implication Algebras

In this paper we study some questions concerning ?ukasiewicz implication algebras. In particular, we show that every subquasivariety of ?ukasiewicz implication algebras is, in fact, a variety. We also derive some characterizations of congruence permutable algebras. The starting point for these results is a representation of finite ?ukasiewicz implication algebras as upwardly-closed subsets in direct products of MV-chains.     

Diagnostic value of the Dominic Interactive Assessment with children exposed to intimate partner violence

This article reports on the diagnostic validity of the Dominic Interactive Assessment (DIA) in a sample of Spanish children exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV). The study participants included 55 children aged between 6 and 11 years whose mothers visited an IPV counselling centre. Psychopathology and functional impairment were used as the main criteria for assessing predictive and discriminative accuracy, as well as incremental validity, of DIA. The results indicate that DIA permits obtaining useful information from children. This information improves the prediction and validity of the process of clinical assessment of children exposed to IPV. Children's self-reports could prove effective in identifying cases in this high-risk population when developmentally adequate instruments and functional criteria are used.     

Psychological Wellbeing,Dyadic Adjustment,and Parental Stress among Spanish Families during the COVID-19 Outbreak

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Due to COVID-19, many countries, like Spain, imposed lockdown on the entire population to prevent the virus from spreading. The purpose of this exploratory...     

La percepción de la conducta agresiva: Un estudio taxonómico de las diferencias inter e intraculturales

Resumen

El presente artículo tiene corno principal objetivo ser una alternativa a las tradicionales clasificaciones teóricas de la agresión e, incluso, a los estudios taxonómicos empíricos más recientes. Usar estímulos no representativos, ofrecer indicios sobre las dimensiones de juicios preseleccionados, etc. son algunos de los inconvenientes que no permiten considerar a estas dimensiones perceptuales de la agresión como fiables. En este trabajo se pretenden superar estas y otras críticas con el fin de proporcionar las verdaderas dimensiones que subyacen a la percepción social de los episodios agresivos cotidianos. El Escalamiento Multidimensional (Modelo IÑDSCAL) fue seleccionado como el análisis más apropiado para proponer una taxonomía empírica adecuada y comprobar hasta qué punto una misma taxonomía es compartida por diferentes subculturas (Universitaria y Reclusa). El análisis de los datos nos permitió concluir acerca de la existencia de un dominio psicológico en 4 dimensiones para percibir un conjunto de estímulos agresivos, de la existencia de ciertas diferencias entre ambas submuestras y, por último, de la homogeneidad existente dentro de una misma muestra, independientemente de algunas variables de personalidad previamente seleccionadas.     

Gender-Moderated Dorsolateral Prefrontal Reductions in 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome: Implications for Risk for Schizophrenia

To investigate the impact of the microdeletion on morphology of the prefrontal cortex in 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (22q11.2 DS), high-resolution, anatomic magnetic resonance imaging was performed on 19 children and adolescents with 22q11.2 DS (11 females, 8 males) and 18 unaffected controls (10 females, 8 males). Tissue volumes of the dorsolateral, dorsomedial, orbitolateral, and orbitomedial prefrontal cortex were measured. Tasks of executive function and working memory were administered to investigate the association between anatomy and function. Whole brain volume and frontal lobe tissue volume were preserved in girls but reduced in boys with 22q11.2 DS relative to age-matched controls. Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) volumes were reduced in participants with 22q11.2 DS, although the gender-by-diagnosis effect found for frontal lobe was not as robust for DLPFC. DLPFC volumes were associated with performance on tasks of planning and emotional facial recognition. Longitudinal studies are needed to clarify whether gender differences in frontal lobe and DLPFC persist with development, and whether the volumes of the DLPFC are associated with eventual deterioration in adaptive/psychosocial function that may presage the onset of schizophrenia, for which individuals with 22q11.2 DS are at a disproportionately high risk.     

Conclusion: “Opening”

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences -     

Perceptual adjustment to time-compressed speech: A cross-linguistic study

Previous research has shown that, when hearers listen to artificially speeded speech, their performance improves over the course of 10–15 sentences, as if their perceptual system was “adapting” to these fast rates of speech. In this paper, we further investigate the mechanisms that are responsible for such effects. In Experiment 1, we report that, for bilingual speakers of Catalan and Spanish, exposure to compressed sentences in either language improves performance on sentences in the other language. Experiment 2 reports that Catalan/Spanish transfer of performance occurs even in monolingual speakers of Spanish who do not understand Catalan. In Experiment 3, we study another pair of languages— namely, English and French—and report no transfer of adaptation between these two languages for English—French bilinguals. Experiment 4, with monolingual English speakers, assesses transfer of adaptation from French, Dutch, and English toward English. Here we find that there is no adaptation from French and intermediate adaptation from Dutch. We discuss the locus of the adaptation to compressed speech and relate our findings to other cross-linguistic studies in speech perception.     

Bullying,Cyberbullying, Student Life Satisfaction and the Community of Chilean Adolescents

Feeling support from the community is a vital aspect of adolescents’ quality of life. Negative experiences at school, such as bullying and cyberbullying can have an adverse impact on adolescents’ life satisfaction that can expand to different domains of their lives including community variables. The goal of the present study was to examine the association between peer victimization, life satisfaction and community support among Chilean adolescents. We used a sample of 497 youths enrolled in grades 9 to 12 of public and private schools in different Chilean districts. Results indicate a negative association between bullying and cyberbullying behavior on community support through life satisfaction. Peer victimization can have negative consequences for youths at a personal level on their assessments of life satisfaction, which can expand to feeling less support from the community. Feeling less support from the community can be detrimental to healthy youth development and adolescents’ quality of life. Community prevention efforts can thus provide emotional support for youth victims of bullying and cyberbullying.