Juliana Burges Sbicigo

Escala de Autoestima de Rosenberg (EAR): validade fatorial e consistência interna

The aim of this study was to investigate the psychometrics properties of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSS) for adolescents. The sample was composed of 4.757 adolescents, with ages between 14 and 18 years old (M=15.77; SD=1.22) in nine Brazilian cities. Participants responded to an adapted version of the RSS for Brazil. Exploratory factorial analysis showed a bidimensional structure, with 51.4% of explained variance. This result was supported by confirmatory factor analysis. The internal consistency analysis by Cronbach alpha coefficient, composite reliability and extracted variance indicated good reliability. Differences in self-esteem for gender and age were not found. These findings show that RSS has satisfactory psychometric qualities and it’s a reliable instrument to assess self-esteem in Brazilian adolescents.

Análise Fatorial Confirmatória do Instrumento de Avaliação Neuropsicológica Breve Infantil - NEUPSILIN - Inf

Se examino la estructura interna del Instrumento de Evaluacion Neuropsicologica Breve Infantil - NEUPSILIN-Inf a traves de Analisis Factorial Confirmatorio (AFC). Participaron del estudio 840 ninos (421 de la ciudad de Sao Paulo, 419 de Porto Alegre, RS-Brasil), con edades entre seis y 12 anos (M=8,98, DE=1,98), entre el primer y sexto ano de primaria, de escuelas publicas y privadas. Se testaron modelos teoricos hipoteticos considerandose la organizacion original del instrumento y la literatura neuropsicologica. Se verifico adecuacion empirica de cinco de los siete modelos primeramente pensados: praxis constructivas, memoria verbal, memoria episodica y semantica, procesamiento visual y desempeno academico. Contrariamente a las hipotesis, el lenguaje se ajusto como un modelo de un factor, mientras memoria de trabajo, atencion y funciones ejecutivas fueron mas bien explicadas por un modelo de dos factores correlacionados. Se concluyo que el NEUPSILIN-Inf presenta evidencia de validez basada en la estructura interna y puede ser utilizado en la evaluacion neuropsicologica de ninos para examinar esos grupos de componentes neurocognitivos.

Family environment and psychological adaptation in adolescents

The association between quality of family relationships and psychological adjustment has been understudied in the literature. This study tested the predictive relationship between family environment (measured by the dimensions of cohesion, hierarchy, support and conflict) and indicators of psychological adjustment (self-esteem, general self-efficacy and low levels of self-depreciation) in adolescents using structural equation modeling. Participants were 656 students aged between 12 and 18 years old from public schools. They answered the Family Climate Inventory, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and General Perceived Self-efficacy Scale. The results indicated that the family environment (cohesion, support and low conflict) was a significant predictor of psychological adaptation. This study concluded that functional family relationships are important for the expression of positive psychological characteristics during adolescence.

Contextual variables associated with psychosocial adjustment of adolescents.

This study investigated associations of contextual variables of risk (stressful events and exposure to community violence), variables of protection (family environment, connectivity to the school and community perceptions) and demographic variables (gender and age) with indicators of psychosocial adjustment (self-esteem, involvement in illegal activities and alcohol use in past month) among adolescents. The participants were 685 students (61.5% girls) aged between 12 and 18 years (M = 15.10, SD = 1.52) of public schools in southern Brazil. They answered a questionnaire with 77 questions and an inventory for assessment of family relationships. Logistic regression analyses indicated that the negative perception of family environment, poor connectivity to the school and exposure to community violence were associated with low self-esteem. Involvement in illegal activities was associated with low connectivity to school, stressful events, exposure to community violence and male sex. Finally, alcohol use/month was associated with negative perception of the community, community violence, stressful events, and particularly at the ages of 15-16 years.

The role of attention in perceptual and conceptual priming.

The aim of this study aim was to explore the role of attention in nonverbal perceptual implicit memory (priming) and verbal perceptual and conceptual tests, comparing with equivalent tests of explicit memory. We hypothesized that perceptual priming would be immune to the effects of divided attention during retrieval, while conceptual priming and explicit tasks would be vulnerable to these effects. Three experiments tested this hypothesis in a divided-attention condition in the retrieval phase. Experiment 1 used a picture-fragment completion task and a tone judgment task; Experiment 2 used a word-stem completion task; and Experiment 3 used a category-exemplar production task. Experiments 2 and 3 used a secondary task in which a sequence of consonants was judged as same or different. Implicit memory was affected by divided attention in the picture-fragment completion task and the category-exemplar production task. The word-stem completion task was immune to the effects of divided attention. The explicit tests were affected in the 3 experiments. Together, these results indicate that, under some circumstances, perceptual implicit memory demands attentional resources during retrieval. Conceptual implicit memory, on the other hand, always requires attentional resources, as has been previously shown in the literature.