Andreu Vigil-Colet

Spanish adaptation of Dickman's impulsivity inventory: its relationship to Eysenck's personality questionnaire

Abstract We used exploratory factor analysis to determine the factorial structure of the Spanish adaptation of Dickmans impulsivity inventory in a sample of 355 university students. Our results showed the two impulsivity factors, functional and dysfunctional, described by Dickman (1990). We applied consensus direct oblimin rotation to the Spanish, American and Dutch versions of the inventory and obtained a high congruence between the three factorial solutions which seems to suggest that they are quite stable across languages and populations. Both kinds of impulsivity showed relationships to the extraversion and psychoticism dimensions of the EPQ-R although extraversion was more related to functional impulsivity and psychoticism was more related to dysfunctional impulsivity.

Parent-child agreement in SCARED and its relationship to anxiety symptoms.

The aim of this study is to analyze parent-child agreement in the Spanish version of the Screen for Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders and its relationship with the anxiety symptoms reported in a scheduled interview and the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview for Children and Adolescents in order to establish the best informant and the degree of incremental validity when both sources of information are combined. Results indicated that, as in the original English version, parent-children agreement is low, with parents clearly tending to report fewer severe symptoms than children. When both parent and child versions were related to anxiety symptoms of the scheduled interview, children showed higher relationships than parents with all the anxiety categories reported by the scheduled interview. Childrens scores were also the best predictors of anxiety symptoms, while incremental validity of parents reports was quite low.

The relationships between functional and dysfunctional impulsivity and aggression across different samples

E. S. Barratt proposed the term impulsive aggression to define a kind of aggression that is characterized by acting without thinking because of high levels of impulsivity. Previous research using psychometric measures has shown that impulsivity and aggression are related as far as psychometric measures are concerned. Nevertheless, most of the research has been done with samples of university students. Our research tests whether this relationship is stable across different samples; university students, teenagers and workers. Our results show that impulsivity and aggression have a consistent pattern of relationships across these samples, with impulsivity being specially related to emotional and instrumental aspects of aggression. Furthermore, the effects of anger on aggression seem to show a pattern of relationship that depends on age, with a tendency to physical aggression in young people and verbal aggression in adults.

Psychometric properties of the Spanish adaptation of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11-A for children.

Given difficulty in having children assess their own behaviour, there are few self reports on child impulsivity. With the exception of Eysencks 16 questionnaire, there are no self-report measures of impulsivity in children with good psychometric properties. The present study tested the possibility of using the adolescent version of the Barrati Impulsiveness Scale-11 with children. For this purpose the questionnaire was translated and backtranslated and administered to school children (182 boys and 195 girls) ages 8 to 12 years (M = 10.4, SD = 0.9). The data were analysed by exploratory factor analysis, to evaluate the factorial structure of the questionnaire, the fit of the proposed solution, and internal consistency reliabilities. Results seem to indicate that this questionnaire may be useful in assessing impulsivity in children. The three-factor structure showed slight differences with the initial questionnaire proposed by Barratt and had good or sufficient internal consistency (depending upon the scale) across the 8- to 12-yr.-old age range.

Sex Differences in the Full and Reduced Versions of the Aggression Questionnaire

Sex differences in aggression have been widely analyzed using the Buss and Perry (1992) aggression questionnaire (AQ). The sex effects obtained when this questionnaire has been shortened and refined indicate some difficulties in replicating the results obtained with the full questionnaire. The present paper attempts to analyze whether these difficulties indicate sex bias in the AQ. To this end we administered the AQ to a sample of 416 subjects and analyzed the possible sex bias of the AQ by using confirmatory factor analysis models. Results show that the AQ is free of sex bias and that sex differences in the AQ and in the two revised versions seem to be the result of true sex differences and are specific to the physical aggression scale.

Impulsivity and internalizing disorders in childhood

Impulsivity has often been related to externalizing disorders, but little is known about how it is related to symptoms of internalizing disorders. This study aims to examine the relationship between impulsivity and depression and anxiety symptoms of depression and anxiety in childhood, and compare it with its relationship with a measure of aggressive behavior, which is present in many externalizing disorders. We administered the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 for children, the Childrens Depression Inventory and the Screen for Childrens Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders to a case-control sample of 562 children aged between 9 and 13 who were selected from an epidemiological study of anxiety and depression and whose teachers provided information about their proactive and reactive aggression. Impulsivity was related to measures of anxiety, depression and aggressive behavior, and showed higher relationships with measures of internalizing symptoms than with aggression. Motor impulsivity, a component of impulsivity related to inhibition deficits, was the component most related to anxiety and depression. Cognitive impulsivity, on the other hand, was negatively related to anxiety and depression. The relationships between impulsivity and symptoms of internalizing disorders seem to indicate that impulsivity should be taken into account not only in externalizing problems, but also in depression and anxiety in children and adolescents.

Are old people so gentle? Functional and dysfunctional impulsivity in the elderly

BACKGROUND Although old people may seem less impulsive than adults, numerous experimental studies report that they have inhibitory deficits. Bearing in mind that there is a relationship between inhibition processes and impulsivity, age-related inhibition deficits suggest that older people could be more impulsive than adults. METHODS The aim of the current study was to compare the functional and dysfunctional impulsivity scores obtained in a sample of elderly people (65 years old and above) with those obtained in previous studies on samples of adolescents and adults. Dickmans Impulsivity Inventory was administered to 190 individuals aged between 65 and 94 years without dementia or cognitive impairment. RESULTS Results indicated that the elderly sample showed higher dysfunctional impulsivity levels than the adult samples, which is consistent with the inhibition deficits mentioned above. There were no significant differences in functional impulsivity. Furthermore, old women had higher scores than old men on dysfunctional impulsivity. CONCLUSIONS This study provides evidence of age-related changes in dysfunctional impulsivity. Functional impulsivity did not show the same pattern as dysfunctional impulsivity, being quite stable across the age span. it seems, then, that impulsivity cannot be considered to decrease with age and dysfunctional impulsivity may even increase.

Sex differences in psychometric and chronometric measures of intelligence among young adolescents

We analysed the effects of sex on psychometric and chronometric measures of intelligence in a sample of 234 secondary school students. We found that sex affects measures of specific abilities such as spatial or word fluency tests and visual forms tests but that it showed no effect on either high g-loaded tests or on composite measures obtained by principal components analysis. Also these effects seem to be stable between ages 11 and 14 years.

How social desirability and acquiescence affect the age-personality relationship.

BACKGROUND Recent studies have suggested that the age-personality relationship may be partially explained by age-related changes in social desirability. In the present study, we analyze how age affects social desirability and acquiescence, and how they affect the age-personality relationship. METHOD We used a specially designed personality test, which provides response bias and personality dimension scores independently of each other. We applied this test to a sample of 3773 individuals aged between 13 and 97 years old (49.69% female) and analyzed the effects of age, sex, and their interactions on response bias and personality dimensions. RESULTS Age affects social desirability and acquiescence, both of which increase with age, and this increase affects the age-personality relationship, especially for dimensions such as Agreeableness or Conscientiousness. CONCLUSIONS The age-related differences found in self-reported personality measures might be partly attributable to age-related increases in response bias. Furthermore, the high scores of elderly people on response bias measures implies that the results of self-reports that do not incorporate any correction for response bias should be viewed with caution, especially when they are obtained in samples of people over 50 years old.

I-DAQ: a new test to assess direct and indirect aggression free of response bias.

Self-reports of aggression are deeply impacted by response bias, especially by social desirability, but there are no specific methods for controlling this bias. Furthermore, despite the importance of the subject few instruments have been designed to assess both direct and indirect forms of aggression. The aim of the present research was to develop a brief measure that comprises both forms of aggression and which makes it possible to obtain scores free of social desirability and acquiescence effects. The scales were created using recently developed methods for controlling response bias effects in a sample of 750 participants over a wide age range. The items were chosen by a panel of judges from among the best of the existing aggression measures. Confirmatory factor analysis showed the expected three factor structure (CFI = .98; AGFI = .97 and RSMEA = .078, 90% C.I. = .074 - .083) and the scales showed good psychometric properties in that they had good reliability (ranging from θxx = .77 to θxx = .83), and convergent and criterion validity.