Antonio José Rojas Tejada

Acculturation Strategies and Attitudes of African Immigrants in the South of Spain: Between Reality and Hope

This research is based on the work of Berry, Bourhis, Piontkowski, and their colleagues on general immigrant acculturation attitudes. The main purpose is to show that the division of the general acculturation attitude into different areas provides more complete information on the acculturation process undergone by immigrants. A new acculturation model, Relative Acculturation Extended Model, (RAEM) has been designed and tested. The model establishes seven areas of acculturation and differentiates among the acculturation strategies adopted (real situation) and the acculturation attitudes preferred (ideal situation) by immigrants. Eight hundred thirteen African immigrants (residents in the south of Spain, Andalusia) who responded to a questionnaire participated in the study. The results show that the general acculturation attitude is one of integration; however, the strategies adopted and the attitudes preferred vary depending on the areas of acculturation considered.

Prejudiced Attitude Measurement Using the Rasch Rating Scale Model

There have been two basic approaches for the study of minority group prejudice against the majority: to adapt instruments from the majority group, and to use qualitative techniques by analyzing the content of the discourse of the groups involved. Neither of these procedures solves the problem of measuring intergroup attitudes of majorities and minorities in interaction. This study shows the result of a prejudice scale which was developed to measure the attitude of both the minority and majority groups. Prejudice is conceived as an attitude which requires the beliefs or opinions about the out-group, the emotions it elicits, and the behavior or intentional behavior toward it to be known for its evaluation. The innovation in this work is that the psychometric development of the scale was based on the item response theory, and more specifically, the rating scale model.

Analysis of the Unconventional Political Action Scale: Results in Spain

Citizens usually participate in two ways in politics: conventional and unconventional political action. The latter type covers a wide range of behaviors that do not conform to the rules defined under a specific regime. Among the most significant unconventional expressions are the signing of petitions, boycotts, legal demonstrations, illegal strikes, and the occupation of buildings. In this article, the psychometric properties of a scale to measure unconventional political action in Spain are assessed. This scale was included in the last World Values Survey (of 1995-1996). The sample used in that survey contained 6,920 persons in Spain. The data from Spain are analyzed for the country as a whole and by region. Reliability, as indicated by Cronbachs alpha, is acceptable, and construct validity (tested with a principal components analysis, a differential study, and a correlational study) supports the use of the scale to differentiate persons in unconventional political action.

Is it advisable to include negative attributes to assess the stereotype content? Yes, but only in the morality dimension

Competence, morality and sociability dimensions have shown to be essential to measure stereotypes. Theoretically, the attributes associated with the negative pole of morality are more reliable and have shown to have higher evaluative weight. However, the current research usually employs only positive attributes to measure each dimension. Since the advantages of the inclusion of negative morality are clear it would be interesting to know about the effects of the inclusion of such type of attributes (i.e., it is good or bad for the measurement). The purpose of this study is to examine if the addition of negative items makes possible to improve the stereotype content measures. This study compares the differences between scales with various compositions of positive and negative items of stereotypes to predict three related variables: anger, fear and a semantic differential of evaluation. The study was carried out with a sample of 550 Spaniards. The data found highlights the importance of using attributes of the negative pole of morality in studying stereotypes. Their use was able to explain the intergroup emotional responses and the semantic differential more efficiently.

Similitud percibida y actitudes de aculturación en autóctonos e inmigrantes

The aim of the work is to evaluate if there are differences in similarity perceived depending on the acculturation option of natives and immigrant. It will also be taken into account the Relative Acculturation Extended Model (RAEM) sociocultural domains (public and private). This study involved two samples of Spaniards (499 Spaniards rating Romanians group, and 493 Spaniards rating Ecuadorians group) selected by polietapic sampling. The minority group comprised 500 Romanians and 475 Ecuadorians selected by incidental sampling. All participants, Spaniards and immigrants, were residents in 12 municipalities in four autonomous regions in the Mediterranean (Spain) with high rates of immigration. All the samples completed a questionnaire with RAEM acculturation indicators (both public and private domains). They completed a perceived similarity test as well. The results show differences in acculturation-preferred options for both public and private domains in all the samples. In the same way, differences between perceived similarities of the samples, depending on the attitudes of acculturation, were found. In future research it should be attended also to variables as the group identification as moderating of the intergroup processes.

Comparison of the Predictive Capacity of the Erotophobia–Erotophilia and the Attitudes Toward Sexual Behaviors in the Sexual Experience of Young Adults:

The prediction of sexual behaviors in emerging adult population is important because the number of sexually active individuals is high, and many young adults engage in sexually risky behaviors. Attitudes are an effective way to predict behaviors. The attitude–behavior relation is stronger when both attitude and behavior are measured at equivalent levels of specificity. The aim of this study was to provide empirical support of the Attitudes toward Sexual Behaviors Scale (ASBS) predictive capacity for the sexual experience (number of different sexual behaviors performed) as well as to compare it with the Sexual Opinion Survey (SOS; erotophobia–erotophilia dimension) predictive capacity. Participants were 632 heterosexual young adults (57.8% were women) of Spanish nationality aged 18 to 30 years, selected by incidental and snowball sampling. Sociodemographic questions, the ASBS, the SOS, and a checklist about sexual experience were administered online. When the age and sex variables were controlled, the ASBS predictive capacity for the sexual experience was found to be greater than the SOS predictive capacity in both young men and women. These results might be explained by the higher correspondence in the sexual experience measure (specific sexual behaviors) with the ASBS than with the SOS.

Instrumentos de Medida de Actitudes hacia la Sexualidad: Una Revisión Bibliográfica Sistemática

espanolLas aproximaciones de l estudio de las actitudes hacia la sexualidad se caracterizan por la abundancia de publicaciones basadas en distintos marcos conceptuales e instrumentos de medicion. En este trabajo se realizo una revision bibliografica sistematica para identificar los instrumentos disponibles, con la finalidad de analizar sus objetivos, contenidos y principales caracteristicas. Se utilizaron las bases de datos Proquest Psychology Journal y Scopus. En 372 documentos recuperados se identificaron 55 instrumentos diferentes que cumplian los criterios de inclusion establecidos, que permiten clasificarlos en tres tipos. Aunque los instrumentos hacen referencia a las actitudes hacia la sexualidad, no siempre comprenden contenidos similares. Esto es coherente con las definiciones amplias y poco delimitadas sobre la sexualidad y con las escasas definiciones del constructo actitudes hacia la sexualidad. EnglishThe approaches to the study of attitudes toward sexuality are characterized by the abundance of publications based on different conceptual frameworks and by a plethora of measurement instruments. The aim of the study was to conduct a systematic literature review to identify and to present an overview of information (measurement objective, the content and the main properties) on instruments measuring the attitudes toward sexuality. A systematic literature search was undertaken in Proquest Psychology Journal and Scopus databases. Fifty five different instruments that met the inclusion criteria were identified in three hundred seventy-two retrieved documents. The instruments were classified in three types. Although the instruments refer to attitudes toward sexuality, not always refer to the same content. This is in line with the broad and slightly delimited definitions of sexuality and with the few explicit definitions of the construct attitudes toward sexuality .

A polytomous rasch analysis of the english version of health-related quality of life for drug abusers test.

The specific aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the English version of the Health-Related Quality of Life for Drug Abusers Test (HRQoLDA Test) applying the Rasch model, and emphasizing fit between empirical data and theoretical Rasch model assumptions; item(s) category probability curve; and precision in terms of information function. In this study, the authors present the results of the translation and adaptation of the original Spanish version to English, as applied to a sample of substance users in Australia. The authors evaluated 121 adults recruited from inpatient and outpatient treatment facilities in Sydney, Australia. The Rating Scale Model was used in the psychometric analysis of the English version of the HRQoLDA Test. The items and persons revealed a fit between the reported data and the model. It was also demonstrated that respondents did not discriminate among the five response categories, which led to a reduction to three response categories. The adaptation of the TECVASP to the English language, renamed the HRQoLDA test, as developed with an Australian sample revealed adequate psychometric properties.