Libro de Contribuciones de la I Jornada de Investigación de la Facultad de Psicología

La pérdida de un ser querido puede conllevar un duelo con síntomas psicológicos y de salud física relacionados con variables implicadas tanto del fallecido, como del doliente y de las circunstancias que rodean a la muerte. El estudio se ha llevado a cabo con 40 usuarios del Parque Cementerio de Málaga (PARCEMASA) que habían perdido recientemente a un ser querido (29 por muertes inesperadas y 11 por muertes esperadas). El objetivo ha sido evaluar la sintomatología de estrés postraumático, de duelo complicado y depresión, así como el nivel de salud física y emocional percibida en ambos grupos de personas. Los resultados muestran que ambos grupos se diferencian en los síntomas de TEPT y salud emocional percibida, siendo el grupo de personas con pérdidas inesperadas el que obtiene puntuaciones significativamente más altas en ambas variables. Asimismo, los análisis efectuados muestran que las puntuaciones en el TEPT vienen explicadas por niveles elevados de duelo complicado, de síntomas de depresión y por no haber presenciado el escenario de la muerte, en tanto que el duelo complicado es pronosticado por un alto grado de apego con el fallecido y niveles elevados de depresión. Los hallazgos son discutidos a la luz de las repercusiones que los mismos tienen para la intervención psicológica en este ámbito

Libro de contribuciones de las II Jornadas de Investigación de la Facultad de Psicología y Logopedia de la Universidad de Málaga

El estudio de las emociones, su regulación y sus posibles implicaciones en la vida de las personas es un campo de estudio que ha contado con un interés creciente en los últimos años, debido a que hoy existen pocas dudas acerca de la importancia de la regulación emocional (Fernández-Berrocal & Ramos, 2002; Hogeven, Salvi & Grafman, 2016, Mayers, Robert & Barsade, 2008). Gran parte del interés científico puesto en el estudio de las emociones se debe a la Inteligencia Emocional (IE), un concepto que fue formalmente descrito por Salovey y Mayer a principios de los años noventa (Salovey y Mayer, 1990). Existen diversos enfoques que cuentan con una justificación teórica de la IE basada en la revisión de literatura previa, y que se apoyan en estudios que han comprobado su modelo mediante medidas de evaluación (Bar-On, 1997a; Boyatzis, Goleman & Rhee, 2000; Mayer y Salovey, 1997; Petrides & Furnham, 2001). A día de hoy, dos son los modelos más aceptados en la definición de qué es la IE: el Modelo de Habilidad y el Modelo Mixto (Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2000). Los Modelos de Habilidad proponen que la IE es un tipo de inteligencia o aptitud superior que podría superponerse con habilidades cognitivas, planteando que la IE como “la habilidad de llevar a cabo razonamientos precisos sobre las emociones y la habilidad de usar las emociones y sus conocimientos para potenciar el pensamiento” (Mayer, Roberts & Barsade, 2008, p.511). El Modelo de Habilidad de Salovey y Mayer (1997) es el modelo más extendido y el que cuenta con mayor evidencia empírica a día de hoy, el cual define la IE como “la habilidad de percibir, valorar y expresar las emociones; la capacidad de acceder y generar sentimientos que faciliten el pensamiento; la capacidad para comprender la emoción y el conocimiento emocional; y la capacidad para regular las emociones y promover el crecimiento emocional e intelectual” (Mayer y Salovey, 1997, p.10)

The role of aversiveness in the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and inflexible avoidance

The study of avoidance behaviour is considered relevant to improve our understanding of anxiety disorders, which are commonly characterized by the presence of undue avoidance behaviours. Flores et al. (2018) found evidence that Prospective Intolerance of Uncertainty (P-IU) is associated with inflexible avoidance behaviour. Specifically, healthy participants learned in a free-operant discriminative task to avoid an aversive sound, and were tested in extinction to measure the sensitivity of avoidance responses to the devaluation of the sound aversiveness. The results showed that an increase in P-IU was positively associated with insensitivity to outcome devaluation. This association was still significant even when trait anxiety was controlled for. These results suggested that PIU may be a vulnerability factor for inflexible avoidance. However, in a recent replication, we found that the relationship between P-IU and inflexible avoidance was moderated by the participants ratings of outcome aversiveness. Specifically, the significant association between PIU and insensitivity to outcome devaluation was found to be conditional upon high aversiveness ratings.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, proyecto I+D+i PSI2014-56061. Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme. Plan Propio de Investigación de la Universidad de Málaga, Programa de Fortalecimiento de las Capacidades en I+D+I en las Universidades 2014-20150, Fondos FEDER

Estimates of the likelihood of threats are related to intolerance of uncertainty and learning

In the present experiment, we assessed the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and expectancy ratings of threats both in the presence of conditioned stimuli (CS) that signalled the delivery of an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US), and after making an avoidance response. Participants learned the relationship between several pictures serving as CSs and an aversive sound serving as the US, and learned to avoid the US through a procedure including alternating pavlovian and negative reinforcement training phases. Expectancy ratings were measured on every training trial. Our results only showed a significant association between intolerance of uncertainty and expectancy ratings made after avoidance responses. This association was found only when the avoidance response was made in the presence of CSs signalling that the aversive sound was avoidable. The increase in intolerance of uncertainty was related to lower expectancy ratings in good learners, and to higher expectancy ratings in bad learners. These results are tentatively explained by invoking a view of intolerance of uncertainty as an exaggerated reaction to uncertainty aimed at learning to avoid threats.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Ministerio de Ciencia y Competitividad. Proyecto Nacional I+D+i. PSI2014-56061

Studying habit acquisition with an avoidance learning task

Afiliaciones: Universidad de Málaga and Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Málaga (IBIMA), Spain Universidad de Málaga, Spain University of Leuven, BelgiumThe study of habit acquisition and expression is considered relevant to improve our understanding of mental disorders characterised by the presence of compulsive or incontrollable behaviours. Most studies on habit learning, both in animals and in humans, are based on positive reinforcement paradigms. However, the compulsions and habits involved in some mental disorders may be better understood as avoidance behaviours, which involve some peculiarities such as anxiety states that have been shown to promote habitual responses. Consequently, we studied habit acquisition by using a free-operant discriminated avoidance procedure. Participants learned to avoid an aversive noise presented either to the right or to the left ear by pressing two different keys. After a devaluation phase where participants could reduce the volume of the noise presented to one of the ears, participants went through a test phase identical to the avoidance learning phase except for the fact that the noise was never administered. Habit acquisition was inferred by comparing the rate of responses to the stimulus signalling the devalued reinforcer and to the stimulus signalling the non-devalued reinforcer. Habitual responses would entail the absence of differences between the referred conditions. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and clinical implications of the results obtained.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

The effect of experience and instructions on learned attentional biases

Afiliaciones: Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Málaga (IBIMA), University of Malaga, Spain Primary Care and Public Health Sciences, King’s College London, UK School of Psychology, UNSW Australia, Sydney, AustraliaIt has been shown that selective attention is allocated to the best available predictor of an outcome, which is known as learned predictiveness. Mitchell et al. (2012) have shown that instructions about the ‘relevance’ of each stimulus can influence (and even reverse) the learned predictiveness attentional bias, suggesting that propositional reasoning plays a crucial role in this phenomenon. Our experiment further explores the effects of instructions on this learned attentional bias. As a difference with previous work, we measured attentional capture through spatial cueing effects, which have been found to rely on rapid attentional processes (Le Pelley et al., 2013). Participants responded faster to events presented in the spatial location cued by stimuli that had previously been trained as predictive through trial-by-trial learning. However, verbal instructions regarding relevance failed to speed up participants’ responses or to modulate the effect of learned predictiveness on spatial cueing. These results suggest that predictive stimuli produce an attentional bias which is not (always) under voluntary control.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

The rise and fall and rise again? Of associative processes in human contingency learning

Dickinson, Shanks, & Evenden claimed 30 years ago that associative processes may be underlying intuitive judgments in human contingency learning. However, this hypothesis has been seriously questioned by a more cognitive account based on inferential reasoning (see Shanks, 2010 for a review). A prediction derived from the associative hypothesis, probably not sufficiently tested, is that knowledge retrieval must be fast and derived from a spreading activation mechanism. Thus, associative processes may not only be underlying intuitive judgments but also individuals’ performance in tasks where a rapid response must be executed, after allowing little time to stimulus processing. Using a cued-response task as well as an associative repetition priming task, the experiments reported showed the implication of fast memory retrieval processes in interference and blocking phenomena. Additionally, the implications of these results for the associative-cognitive debate are discussed.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

The role of relief, perceived control, and prospective intolerance of uncertainty in excessive avoidance in uncertain-threat environments

Excessive avoidance is a key feature of pathological anxiety. However, the precise mechanisms underlying the development of excessive avoidance are still unknown. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that excessive avoidance, especially in individuals with high Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) is aimed at distress reduction via the enhancement of subjective perceived control in uncertain-threat environments. In our experiment, participants learned to avoid an uncertain aversive sound through a discriminated free operant procedure. In a later test phase in extinction, we manipulated the amount of avoidance responses available per trial by creating a limited and an unrestricted response condition. Nonetheless, the aversive sound could be effectively avoided in both conditions. We measured response frequency, avoidance confidence ratings and anxiety-predisposing traits such as intolerance of uncertainty, trait anxiety and distress tolerance. The degree of distress suffered during trials was inferred from post-trial relief ratings that were requested after trials in which the aversive sound had been omitted. In the avoidance acquisition phase, we found a positive association between prospective intolerance of uncertainty (P-IU) and the decline rate of distress. This relationship was not significant, however, when inhibitory intolerance of uncertainty (I-IU) was controlled for. At test, we found that the increase in avoidance responses led to distress reduction through the enhancement of avoidance confidence. Finally, we found a significant modulating role of P-IU in the effect of response limit on distress reduction that lends further support to our hypothesis. Specifically, P-IU was positively associated with the effect of response limit on distress. However, such modulating role was not significant when controlling for trait anxiety or I-IU.Preparation of this manuscript was supported by a KU Leuven C1 project (C16/19/02), and by Grants PGC2018-096863-B-I00 and UMA18-FEDERJA-051 from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and the Spanish regional government Junta de Andalucía, respectively. María J. Quintero has been awarded a PhD fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities (FPU Programme, FPU18/00917. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga / CBU

Ciencias Sociales: Economía y Humanidades HANDBOOK T-I

Se presenta un breve examen de la producción y comercialización de rosa en México; un estudio en México sobre el ingreso mínimo de las familias que identifica la línea de pobreza alimentaria en el área rural del sur de México, 2012; un pequeño estudio donde hablará sobre el análisis comparado del Sector Gubernamental y la Economía Mexicana desde la perspectiva de los eslabonamientos productivos Hirshman-Rasmuss; un estudio sobre los canales de comercialización de limón persa en el municipio de Martínez de la Torre, Veracruz; una análisis del comercio estratégico en el TLCAN: El Estado en la política agrícola de biocombustibles; también se expresan acerca de la importancia de la comercialización del café en México; un diagnóstico, retos del comercio electrónico en el Sector Agroindustrial Mexicano; trabajo nos muestra y habla sobre la inversión extranjera directa y su impacto en crecimiento de México, un análisis en prospectiva: 1999-2010; un estudio acerca sobre la importancia de la Banca en México; un trabajo acerca de la competitividad de la producción agrícola en México, un análisis regional; se analizan todo acerca de el SIAL productor de quesos en Poxtla, competividad y territorio; se habla acerca de la intermediación financiera al servicio de la comunidad indígena: el fondo regional indígena Tarhiata Keri; ademas un estudio acerca de la demanda de Importaciones de durazno (Prunus pérsica L. Batsch) en México procedentes de Estados Unidos de América (1982-2011); Loera y Sepúlveda analizan los parámetros de la productividad forestal en la producción de madera en rollo; un análisis de factores sociales, ambientales y económicos del territorio rural cercano a la ciudad de México; un estudio acerca de la crisis económica mundial y su efecto sobre los flujos migratorios de América Latina; Magadán, Hernández y Escalona presentan la tipología de los sujetos sociales que intervienen en el mercado campesino de Ocotlán Oaxaca; la normalización del proceso de compostaje: una opción para desarrollar el mercado de la composta; acerca de la reestructuración del capitalismo y crisis política en México; la rentabilidad de la producción de miel en el municipio de León, Guanjuato; la economía del maíz en la región metropolitana, Chiapas, 2014; análisis de los centros de educación y cultura ambiental, necesidad de profesionalización Pedagógica de facilitadores ambientales; los Costos y competitividad de la producción del limón persa en el municipio de Martínez de la Torre, Veracruz

A search for ultra-high-energy photons at the Pierre Auger Observatory exploiting air-shower universality

The Pierre Auger Observatory is the most sensitive detector to primary photons with energies above ∼0.2 EeV. It measures extensive air showers using a hybrid technique that combines a fluorescence detector (FD) with a ground array of particle detectors (SD). The signatures of a photon-induced air shower are a larger atmospheric depth at the shower maximum (X$_{max}$) and a steeper lateral distribution function, along with a lower number of muons with respect to the bulk of hadron-induced background. Using observables measured by the FD and SD, three photon searches in different energy bands are performed. In particular, between threshold energies of 1-10 EeV, a new analysis technique has been developed by combining the FD-based measurement of X$_{max}$ with the SD signal through a parameter related to its muon content, derived from the universality of the air showers. This technique has led to a better photon/hadron separation and, consequently, to a higher search sensitivity, resulting in a tighter upper limit than before. The outcome of this new analysis is presented here, along with previous results in the energy ranges below 1 EeV and above 10 EeV. From the data collected by the Pierre Auger Observatory in about 15 years of operation, the most stringent constraints on the fraction of photons in the cosmic flux are set over almost three decades in energy