http://www.dx.doi.org/10.14718/ACP.2018.21.1.1
Editorial
Ernesto L. Ravelo C.*
* Editor. revistaacta@ucatolica.edu.co
In this new edition we share with our readers articles from Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Spain, Argentina, the Basque Country and Ecuador.
The first article deals with the topic of Cyberbullying understood as a phenomenon that involves aggressive, intentional and repetitive behaviors perpetrated by an individual or a group through electronic means against a victim who presents difficulties to defend himself/herself. The proposed objective was to investigate the prevalence of this phenomenon in adolescents from two cities of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), as well as its relationship with coping strategies. The results show, among other details, that 58% of adolescents fit into some category of aggression and that the averages of self-control, social support and flee-escape strategies were significantly higher for the victims than for those not involved.
The second article evaluates the effect of the functional content of the instruction on the acquisition, transfer and description of the performance on a second order matching -to -sample task in Colombian university students. Among the results, it is highlighted that the abstract stimulus control can be presented both by transfer of function through instructions and by differentiation of positive and negative cases of contingencies.
The third study describes the effect of the passage of time on the spatial memory of university students of Mexican nationality. Its results show that spatial memory is retained without significant changes for a period of 48 hours after acquisition, but when the length of time is 168 hours, the content of long-term spatial memory is modified, as reflected in the virtual water maze (VWM) experiment, since the search for the goal was less persistent and precise than in scenarios with less time elapsed between training and evaluation.
The fourth article addresses the problem of excessive consumption of high fat content foods, and aims to characterize changes in behavioral eating patterns produced by the consumption of a high-fat diet in male Wistar rats with free access to food. In this experiment, the rats were assigned either to an experimental or a control group, and for ten days they were on a high-fat diet (45% of calories from fat) or on a standard laboratory diet, according to the group they belonged to. The results show that subjects exposed to the high-fat diet accumulated more body fat and had a higher feeding efficiency, without increasing body weight or showing alterations in the typical pattern of the behavioral satiety sequence.
On the other hand, the fifth article presents a descriptive correlational research that addresses the relationship between assertiveness level, academic performance and various components of anxiety in a sample of Mexican high school students, as well as the exploration of possible differences by sex in these groups. Among the findings, the sex differences stand out in all the study variables and the statistically significant correlations between assertiveness and anxiety (r = .182, p <.01), academic performance and assertiveness (r = -.203, p <.01) and between the academic performance and the social concerns component of the anxiety scale (r = -.124, p <.01).
The sixth article includes a study that seeks to describe the scores classification process of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Scale: Parental Belief Scale (NICU: PBS), and its translation, cultural adaptation and psychometric validation for Brazilian Portuguese with parents of hospitalized premature children. Specifically, the construct validity was checked with the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis in a total sample of 99 parents of premature infants, as well as the content validity, which was "adequate", with a 90% agreement for the translation and a Kappa of .71, according to a committee of expert judges. Ultimately, it is concluded that the Parental Belief Scale obtained a satisfactory content validity and reliability, which shows that its application with fathers and mothers of premature hospitalized newborn in Brazil is adequate.
The seventh article describes the Mexican study in which university students participated to answer information related to a social disaster situation of alluvial mud. This paper analyzes the association between psychopathological symptomatology, stress coping strategies and sociodemographic variables related to the experience of a socio-natural disaster, through a cross-sectional associative comparative strategy and a natural groups design. The results indicate the existence of differences related to participants' sex in the psychopathological symptoms of somatization, depression and anxiety, where women scored higher. In addition, there are differences with respect to the global assessment of the impact produced by a flood in all psychopathological dimensions, except in interpersonal sensitivity. The results suggest that both strategies to cope with stress and the presence of children in the family nucleus, exposure to violence, deterioration of housing and impact assessment, are powerful predictors of depression symptomatology, general symptomatic index, anxiety, somatization, obsession-compulsion and total positive symptoms.
Continuing with the presentation of studies, the eighth article takes a sample of 333 emerging Spanish adults (224 women and 109 men), and analyzes the relationships between purpose-in-life and psychological well-being, as well as differences in psychological well-being depending on the level of purpose -in- life (existential vacuum, lack of purpose and purpose experience). Specifically, the Spanish versions of the Purpose-in-life Test and Ryffs Psychological Well-Being Scales are used as instruments. The results indicate that Spearman's correlation coefficient shows a positive and significant relationship between purpose- in -life and psychological well-being (overall and dimensions), while the Kruskal-Wallis test reveals significant differences in psychological well-being according to the groups of existential vacuum, lack of purpose and purpose experience, except in the dimension of autonomy, in which only the difference between purpose experience and lack of purpose was significant.
On the other hand, the ninth article addresses children's preparation for surgery, taking into account that this generates a potentially traumatic situation given the surgical procedures involved and that it becomes a source of stress and anxiety for children. In this regard, the impact of three forms of pre-surgical psychological preparation to stress and anxiety of children undergoing elective surgery was evaluated. The sample consisted of 80 children from a children's hospital in Brazil, divided into two blocks of 40 subjects according to sex, and randomly assigned to one of four groups. In this work the Infant Stress Scale (ESI) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC) were used to measure stress and anxiety in children, and the intervention was carried out in three different stages. Data analysis was performed using simultaneous regression equations, while the estimates were presented by means of the difference between standardized means and the standard deviation.
Likewise, the tenth article presents the research carried out in Argentina that aims to validate the structure of the Normative System Perception Scale (EPSN, for its Spanish acronym) and describes the regulatory system's functioning perception. The sample was made up of 508 Argentine participants, and the descriptive analysis indicates that the participants have a negative perception of the normative system's functioning, and that it is women who have the most negative perspective of this system, among other specific aspects.
On the other hand, taking into account the different theoretical positions trying to explain how equivalence relations emerge, and that several studies -with inconsistent results-, have attempted to evaluate the role of naming in the emergence of those relations, the eleventh article presents a study that aims to evaluate the emergence of equivalence relationships in pre-linguistic children living in Mexico. Specifically, the participants were assessed in reflexivity, symmetry, transitivity and equivalence, and all achieved scores greater than 75% of correct answers in all the tests. These results would provide evidence that it is not necessary to have some kind of expressive linguistic repertoire for equivalence relationships to emerge.
Finally, the twelfth article addresses the problem of insecurity with a psychometric study of a crime fear scale from a psychosocial perspective. Specifically, an exploratory factorial analysis (EFA) and a confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) for the instrument were carried out in a sample consisting of 298 university students from Ambato (Ecuador). The results show that the scale presents satisfactory goodness of fit indexes. Finally, in this paper two models are developed to explain the fear of crime: one of first order and the other of second order.