Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Although research on psychological abuse in same-gender couples has increased in recent decades, mainly in Englishspeaking countries, it is still scarce in Spanish-speaking countries. The aim of this study was to examine experiences of victimization and perpetration of psychological abuse in same-gender relationships, possible explanations for this abuse, and the difficulties experienced by the victims in identifying it. Twelve semi-structured interviews were carried out with lesbian, gay, and bisexual people living in Spain who had experienced psychological abuse in samegender couples. Through the thematic analysis of the interviews, some psychological abuse strategies were identified: isolation from friends, isolation in the home, control over personal life, emotional abuse, imposing one's ideas, and threatening to out one's partner. Participants provided some explanations for psychological abuse: influence of internalized lesbophobia, biphobia, and gayphobia, seeing the partner as a possession, and a prior experience of violence. The invisibility of same-gender violence and the heteronormative view of gender roles in the couple are pointed out as difficulties for identifying abuse. This study expands scientific knowledge about the psychological abuse strategies experienced in same-gender couples in the Spanish context and singles out some factors that influence the phenomenon and lead to difficulties in identifying abuse.

This study sought to describe the transgender identity construction process from the perspective of transgender adolescents. The aim was to visualize their needs and difficulties during the process, since there is evidence showing that they are a vulnerable group in terms of mental health. A multiple case exploratory study was conducted using qualitative methodology. Participants were 8 purposively selected Chilean teenagers residing in Santiago, Chile, aged between 15 and 19 years, who had revealed their gender identity to their parents and were receiving support from mental health specialists. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and were analyzed using the grounded theory method. Results revealed a trajectory that begins in early childhood with an affinity for and an interest in the activities of the gender not assigned at birth, with family and/or peers displaying reluctance/rejection. This process is associated with contradictory feelings and emotional tension, which compels adolescents to search for information in their sociocultural context in order to name and make sense of what they are experiencing. Afterward, they become able to share their gender identity with those closest to them and begin considering subsequent social changes.

This study presents the evidence of reliability and validity for TADI in a sample of Chilean infants and children with Down syndrome (DS), accordingly to international standards. Forty-eight children with confirmed medical diagnosis of DS and their typical peers were matched by chronological age (M = 4,79, DE = 1,7 years). Children with DS were selected using a non-probabilistic procedure and, children with typical development were randomly selected from ELPI’s data base (2013). Data was obtained from Test de Aprendizaje y Desarrollo Infantil (TADI), Wechsler Intelligence Scale, third edition-Chilean version (WISC-IIIv.ch.), Leiter International Performance Scale, socioeconomic questionnaire and a survey about the medical condition. The evidence of reliability was stablished via Cronbach’s Alpha, the evidence of validity was based on the analysis of content, internal structure and relation with other variables. Results showed good levels of reliability. The evidence of validity shows the content is adequate to explore development, there are not floor or ceiling effects, the internal structure for the group with DS is different from the one reported in the original test and there is strong relation with the external criteria. The professionals should be careful in the interpretation process and future studies must complete these results.

The psychosocial literature in contexts of socio-natural disasters has mainly focused on the study of the psychological consequences for the people affected, paying less attention to psycho-socioenvironmental factors. In this article, we aim to highlight the relevance of community environmental psychology for analyzing both the subjective aspects of people-place relationships and the community relations of the towns hit by disasters. To do this, we present a conceptual framework community psychology and environmental psychology categories which are relevant for studying what we call socio-spatial links in socio-natural disaster situations. This perspective is illustrated by presenting the results of a study carried out with a mixed methodology, which describes how these links emerge in people who have lived in communities affected by earthquakes, a tsunami, and a volcanic eruption in 4 Chilean towns. Responses to the scales of place attachment, place identity, residential satisfaction, sense of community, and civic participation were analyzed in a non-probability (convenience) sample (n = 628), along with reports of 17 focus groups (n = 117) on the constructed meanings of public space. It is concluded that the articulation of environmental and community psychology broadens our understanding of elements of power and dispute in the territory, while also making psychosocial flaws visible in post-disaster reconstruction solutions.

This study investigates the place attachment of the inhabitants of Chaitén, Chile, a community affected by a volcano eruption that destroyed a large part of the city in 2008. The article explores the associations of place attachment with the direct experience of disaster and interpersonal trust. To answer this question, a survey was designed which comprised instruments that measure place attachment, residence, and interpersonal trust. For the latter, the instrument measured trust in old and new inhabitants. The survey was administered in 2015 to 188 inhabitants of Chaitén, who were selected from a two-stage sample stratified by sector (north and south of Chaitén). Based on linear regressions, results indicate that direct experience of the disaster increases place attachment and slightly moderates the association between it and interpersonal trust in the community. Trusting old inhabitants increases place attachment only for people who did not experience the eruption. No association was found between trust in new inhabitants and place attachment. This study contributes to scientific knowledge of place attachment by suggesting that disasters have positive long-term consequences for attachment, while also proposing the need to qualify the well-known direct association between social bonds and this concept. Greater knowledge about place attachment in disaster contexts can foster reconstruction and mitigation processes when dealing with new threats.

A multiple-case study is presented, comprising typical cases of rights violations where each of the 16 child and adolescent participants constituted a case. Adopting a social community psychology approach, the authors analyzed the meanings that children and adolescents living in territories marked by psychosocial vulnerability construct with respect to their everyday life and their access to rights. A descriptive-exploratory study of a qualitative nature was conducted. Life stories, focus groups, and naturalistic observation were implemented. A biographical strategy was adopted to analyze the information collected. Results were organized according to three dimensions of biographical narratives: sociohistorical reality, linked to socioeconomic education; psychic reality, focused on the participants’ being and doing dimensions; and discursive reality, as an instance of retrospective and prospective analysis of the connection with others. The cases presented called into question the effectiveness of social policies aimed at restoring people’s rights. The participants’ life trajectories revealed micro- and macro-political obstacles to accessing rights, a situation that supports the social reproduction of inequalities and has de-subjectivizing effects. Situations that guarantee identity grounding and rights enforceability promote individual and collective subjectivizing processes in the actors involved and pose new challenges in the construction of one’s life project.

The identification of precursors of early reading competence is a promising strategy to prevent reading difficulties. However, it remains unclear whether the available evidence is applicable to reading development in superficial orthographies, such as Spanish, and specifically to population of children from vulnerable backgrounds. To answer this question, multiple regression analysis was used to estimate the explanatory power of (a) expressive vocabulary, (b) phonological awareness, and (c) phoneme-grapheme correspondence skills—measured at the beginning of the first year of primary school—regarding the early reading competence of a purposive sample of 104 first and second grade Spanish-speaking children attending 6 vulnerable private schools in Montevideo, Uruguay. At the beginning of the first year of primary school, these 3 precursors explained 58% of the variance identified in early reading competence. However, one year later, at the beginning of second year of primary school, the same precursors only explained 12% of individual differences in early reading competence. These findings contribute to an empirical body of evidence for the identification of precursors of early reading competence in Spanish speaking children from vulnerable backgrounds.

This article presents the results of the validation of the Work Passion Scale developed by Vallerand et al. (2003). To determine the construct validity and the psychometric properties of the scale, a convenience multi-occupational sample of 452 Argentinean workers (56% women, average age = 35.56 years [SD = 10.84], average seniority = 8.82 years [SD = 9.10]) was used. Factor analyses revealed a structure composed of 2 correlated latent factors, comprising 14 items as observable indicators (S-Bχ2/gl = 1.85, GFI = 0.90, CFI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.04), with adequate reliability according to the ordinal alpha coefficient and the composite reliability coefficient (harmonious passion: α = 0.79, CR = 0.80; obsessive passion: α = 0.80, CR = 0.81). Evidence of concurrent validity was obtained from direct correlations, calculated using Spearman’s rho, between the scales of passion for work, flow, job involvement, and job satisfaction. According to the R2 coefficient, the predictive and incremental validity of passion as an explanation of job satisfaction surpassed the impact of flow and job involvement. The configural and measurement invariance of the scale across gender was demonstrated using the χ2 difference test. The results obtained p

This study was aimed at analyzing, based on the participating teachers' emotional experience, the meanings constructed by them regarding the task of responding to diversity. To do this, the researchers analyzed 12 interviews with a purposive sample of teacher duos composed of a regular teacher and a special education teacher working together within the framework of the School Integration Program in 4 schools of the Metropolitan Region, Chile. In the interviews, teachers were asked to narrate incidents experienced as part of the task of providing an educational response to diversity and in which they had also experienced emotion. Content analysis was performed based on the grounded theory. Results show that teachers report a variety of emotions, with frustration and joy being the most frequent. The meanings generated mainly allude to pedagogical achievement and to the adjustment of behavior to the school context. The conflict between the results obtained and the guiding principles of inclusive education is discussed, along with the possibilities arising from considering emotions as a resource for understanding and tackling the challenge of achieving a more inclusive education.

This article presents the results of a study on the geopolitical relationships of psychology. One hundred and eight undergraduate and graduate theses on the topic of psychosocial risks were examined. They were produced by students of 7 of the main universities of Bogotá, Colombia, between 1991 and 2014. The following aspects were analyzed: the years when the theses were submitted, the academic institution where they were produced, the specific program to which they belonged, the title assigned to each research project, and the design used. In addition, the present study also identified the references consulted, the language in which they had been published, and their type of authorship: national, international, independent researchers, and labor regulation agencies. Results reveal the channels through which psychological knowledge about psychosocial risks circulates, the fading of disciplinary boundaries of psychology, and the emulation that takes place in the local construction of psychology, as well as its consequent subordination to international knowledge networks