Guillaume Gimenes

Bullying, sleep/wake patterns and subjective sleep disorders: Findings from a cross-sectional survey

The aim of this study was to explore: (a) sleep patterns and disorders possibly associated with adolescent bullying profiles (pure bully, pure victim, bully/victim and neutral) and (b) the effect of sleep on psychosocial problems (externalized and internalized) related to bullying. The sample consisted of 1422 students aged 10–18 (mean = 14.3, SD = 2.7; 57% male) from five socioeconomically diverse schools in France. Bullying profiles were obtained using the revised Bully–Victim Questionnaire. Subjective sleep disorders were assessed using the Athens Insomnia Scale. School-week and weekend sleep/wake patterns were recorded. Internalizing problems were investigated using a Perceived Social Disintegration Scale and a Psychological Distress Scale. Externalizing behaviors were assessed using a General Aggressiveness Scale and an Antisocial Behavior Scale. These questionnaires were administered during individual interviews at school. After controlling for effects of gender and age, victims of bullying showed significantly more subjective sleep disturbances than the pure-bully or neutral groups (p < 0.001). Bullies’ sleep schedules were more irregular (p < 0.001 for bedtime irregularity and p<0.01 for wake-up time irregularity) and their sleep duration was shorter than their schoolmates (p < 0.001 for the school week and p < 0.05 for the weekend). There was an effect of sleep on psychosocial problems related to bullying, and our results indicate that sleep has a moderating effect on aggression in bullies (p < 0.001). This would suggest a higher vulnerability of bullies to sleep deprivation. These results show differences in sleep problems and patterns in school-bullying profiles. Findings of this study open up new perspectives for understanding and preventing bullying in schools, with implications for research and clinical applications.

Validation of the French version of the Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire among adolescents

Teenage suicide is a major public health issue in Western societies, especially in France. An instrument to measure suicidal thoughts in French adolescents and thus identify the teenagers at risk is urgently required. The aim of this study was to validate a French version of the Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire (SIQ) for use with teenagers. Respondents (n=956, age range 14-18.0) completed the SIQ and other convergent measures (self-esteem, psychic morbidity, anxiety, and personality) for three validation steps (general and clinical samples). A confirmatory factor analysis was performed on the SIQ. The study supported a 30-item one-factor model, similar to the original questionnaire, with moderate model fit indices (χ(2)/ddl=3.21; RMSEA=0.05; CFI=0.87; GFI=0.92). Significant correlations (-0.22 to 0.74) were found with convergent measures among general (n=871) and psychiatric samples (n=38). A high internal consistency was found with a reliability coefficient of 0.91. The results confirm the psychometric qualities of the questionnaire for French adolescents.

Judgment of blame in teenagers with Asperger's syndrome

ABSTRACT The judgment of blame was studied in a group of 28 teenagers, 14 with Asperger syndrome (AS) and 14 typically developed. Teenagers in each group were matched by age, cognitive development and academic level. They were presented with 12 short vignettes in which they had to judge an action according to the intent of the actor (deliberate and accidental), the consequences of the action (presence and absence) and the seriousness of the situation (low, medium and high). Results showed a significant difference in the patterns of judgment of both groups. The AS group judged the action according to the physical consequence of the action more than the intent of the actor; the opposite was observed with the control group. In addition, the AS teenagers were less capable than the control group of grading injury to a person when apportioning blame especially when they were not familiar with the social situations. This result suggests that the judgement of the seriousness of the outcome of the social interaction is linked with its level of familiarity. Furthermore, result are congruent with the assumption that two different cognitive structures, deontic reasoning and perspective taking, are involved in the judgment of blame.

Division of the articulatory loop according to sensory modality using double dissociation

According to Wilson and Fox (2007), working memory for gestures has the same characteristics as the phonological loop. The purpose of our research was to determine whether there is a common articulatory loop for verbal and gestural learning. We carried out two double dissociation experiments. The first involved 84 participants who had to reproduce a series of three gestures under three conditions: control, gestural interference (repeated gestures) and verbal interference (repeated “blah blah”). A significant difference in performance was observed; gestural interference resulted in the weakest performance, while there was no difference between the verbal interference condition and the control group. The second experiment, with 30 participants, involved the memorisation of letters and digits; performance was significantly affected by verbal interference but there was no difference between the gestural interference condition and the control group. The consequences of the dissociations are discussed in relation to Baddeleys (2000) model.

Psychological barriers and facilitators of colorectal cancer screening: a French qualitative study

The aim of this qualitative study was to explore the psychological barriers to and facilitators of undergoing the Hemoccult-II® colorectal cancer screening test in France. Sixty-nine French people aged 50 to 74 years were divided into seven qualitative focus groups. Three issues were discussed with participants: knowledge and beliefs about colorectal cancer screening; facilitators of colorectal cancer screening by Hemoccult-II®; barriers to colorectal cancer screening by Hemoccult-II®. All the discussions were led by two psychologists and were recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed using qualitative data analysis software. Correspondence factor analyses identified three dimensions for each topic. The main psychological facilitators of colorectal cancer screening were: information about colorectal cancer screening, perceived simplicity of using Hemoccult-II®, and perception of risk. Uncertainty about the reliability of Hemoccult-II®, health anxiety, and embarrassment emerged as the main barriers to colorectal cancer screening. Cross-sectional analyses identified the differences between the views expressed by women and men. Women appeared more embarrassed about Hemoccult-II® and men seemed to be more worried about colorectal cancer. This preliminary study suggests that psychological factors play an important role in colorectal cancer screening by Hemoccult-II®. This finding may help health organizations to conceive better awareness campaigns to promote colorectal cancer screening in order to reduce the related mortality rate by taking into account psychological determinants.

What is the best strategy for retaining gestures in working memory

This study aimed to determine whether the recall of gestures in working memory could be enhanced by verbal or gestural strategies. We also attempted to examine whether these strategies could help resist verbal or gestural interference. Fifty-four participants were divided into three groups according to the content of the training session. This included a control group, a verbal strategy group (where gestures were associated with labels) and a gestural strategy group (where participants repeated gestures and were told to imagine reproducing the movements). During the experiment, the participants had to reproduce a series of gestures under three conditions: “no interference”, gestural interference (gestural suppression) and verbal interference (articulatory suppression). The results showed that task performance was enhanced in the verbal strategy group, but there was no significant difference between the gestural strategy and control groups. Moreover, compared to the “no interference” condition, performance decreased in the presence of gestural interference, except within the verbal strategy group. Finally, verbal interference hindered performance in all groups. The discussion focuses on the use of labels to recall gestures and differentiates the induced strategies from self-initiated strategies.

Analyse Préliminaire des Qualités Psychométriques d’une Version Française du Work Design Questionnaire

Resume Le Work Design Questionnaire (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006) permet l’evaluation de nombreuses dimensions professionnelles. La presente recherche avait pour objectif d’examiner les qualites psychometriques d’une version francaise de cet outil (i.e., le WDQ-F) a l’aide des analyses suivantes : analyse factorielle confirmatoire, coherence interne et validite nomologique avec la satisfaction, l’engagement et l’epuisement professionnel. Dans les etudes 1 et 2, les resultats des analyses factorielles confirmatoires ont montre que les indices d’ajustement du modele en 21 facteurs etaient peu satisfaisants et sept items avaient une faible saturation factorielle. Dans la seconde etude, les resultats ont revele qu’une version raccourcie du WDQ-F (71 items) presentaient de meilleures qualites psychometriques que la version en 77 items. Des analyses de correlation ont egalement confirme la validite nomologique du WDQ-F.

Emotional Response Categorization in Adolescents and Young Adults

Categorization is based on cognitive mechanisms allowing the development of internal representations of the environment that guide behavior. This study tests the influence of emotions on categorization in adolescents and young adults. After a mood induction (negative, positive, or neutral), we compared how 68 adolescents aged 13 to 15 and 57 young adults aged 21 to 29 categorized emotional concepts using a lexical emotional categorization task. Participants had to choose which of three associates, of different emotional valence (positive, negative or neutral), was more similar to a target concept. The aim of this study was to determine if adolescents rely on the emotional dimension in categorization more than adults. The results show that the emotional state can influence the cognitive process of categorization in adolescence, particularly in the negative mood.

Sur quels indices jugeons-nous la mémoire de travail gestuelle ?

Resume L’objectif de notre etude etait d’investiguer la nature des indices sur lesquels se base le jugement de confiance en memoire de travail gestuelle. 25 participants devaient reproduire 27 sequences de trois gestes sans signification. L’apprentissage s’effectuait selon trois conditions experimentales : controle, interference gestuelle, interference verbale. A l’issue de chacune des conditions, les participants realisaient une tâche de jugement de confiance sur leurs performances globales. L’ANOVA revele une diminution des performances seulement en condition d’interference gestuelle et une plus grande sous-evaluation dans les deux conditions interferentes. De plus, une correlation positive entre performance et precision du jugement (ecart entre jugement et performance) est uniquement observee pour la condition controle. Ces resultats mettent en evidence que le jugement de confiance reposerait en partie sur des indices lies a la verbalisation, pourtant non pertinents pour evaluer les performances. Le traitement et l’evaluation des gestes en memoire de travail seraient ainsi dissocies.