Sexual harassment among peers and adolescent dating violence

El presente estudio ha analizado la presencia de violencia sexual entre compañeros y en las parejas adolescentes y jóvenes. Específicamente se han estudiado las diferencias por sexo, edad y estadio de la relación sentimental tanto en violencia sexual entre iguales como en las parejas, en una muestra de 490 adolescentes (55,7% chicos, 44,3% chicas, edad media 16.08 años). Los resultados descriptivos mostraron la misma incidencia de violencia sexual entre iguales y en las parejas. Respecto al sexo, los chicos presentaron mayor implicación como agresores de sus iguales y de sus parejas, pero no se encontraron diferencias con relación a los índices de victimización. Se encontró un efecto importante del estadio de la relación: la violencia sexual entre iguales fue más frecuente entre los que se encontraban en “relaciones casuales” y “grupos mixtos” mientras que la violencia sexual entre parejas fue más frecuente entre los que se encontraban en “relaciones serias”. Para la edad, solo se encontraron diferencias en la violencia sexual entre parejas, siendo que los chicos y chicas más mayores resultaron más implicados que los más pequeños.This paper presents a study about peer and dating sexual harassment among adolescents. Specifically, differences by sex, age and the developmental stage of the romantic relationships were analyzed in both, peer and dating sexual harassment in a sample of 490 adolescents (55,7% boys and 44,3% girls, mean age 16.08). Descriptive data showed that the presence of peer and dating sexual harassment was similar. Boys were more perpetrators in both, peer and dating contexts but no differences by sex were found for victimization indexes. An important effect of the developmental-stage of the relationships was found: peer sexual harassment were more frequent in “casual” and “mixed gender” stage whereas dating sexual harassment was more frequent in “serious relationship”. For age, just differences in dating sexual harassment were found: older adolescents were more involved than younger ones

Relaciones afectivo-sexuales durante la adolescencia: un estudio sobre el comportamiento violento entre los iguales y en la pareja

Introducción o motivación de la tesis En las últimas dos décadas estamos asistiendo a un incremento del interés científico por el estudio de las relaciones afectivo-sexuales durante la adolescencia. Los estudios psicosociales, y en especial los psicoevolutivos, han desplazado a aquellos que, con una visión más clínica de la adolescencia, infravaloraban la importancia que las relaciones sentimentales tienen para los adolescentes y para su desarrollo. Los cambios hormonales y el desarrollo de los caracteres sexuales secundarios, ligados a la maduración sexual, provocan que chicos y chicas comiencen a sentirse atraídos entre sí. Se establecen nuevas formas de relaciones sociales, con connotaciones y matices diferentes a los mantenidos hasta ese momento. La atracción sexual supone un conjunto de comportamientos interactivos complejos y secuenciados en los cuales se producirá un proceso de negociación de significados en torno al deseo y al consentimiento. Estas nuevas interacciones sitúan a los adolescentes ante la tarea de aprender a modular y expresar de forma correcta sus sentimientos y atracción sexual, no solo considerando al otro, sino también teniendo en cuenta las normas y convenciones sociales de la cultura de referencia (Ortega-Rivera, Sánchez y Ortega, 2010). Cuando este proceso de ajuste y negociación no es recíproco, podemos encontrarnos que las progresivas aproximaciones afectivo-sexuales son vividas como molestas y desagradables para una o ambas partes, llegando a ser incluso violentas, lo que en la literatura anglosajona se conoce como sexual harassment. La presencia de estos comportamientos en los grupos de iguales adolescentes podrían consolidarse en estilos de relación agresivos y desajustados que se trasladarían al interior de las primeras relaciones de pareja que surgen en el interior de estos grupos (Connolly y McIsasac, 2011), dando lugar al fenómeno de la violencia en las parejas adolescentes o dating violence (Ortega y Sánchez, 2011). Los estudios internacionales y nacionales que han analizado la prevalencia de los comportamientos violentos en las relaciones afectivo-sexuales de los adolescentes, nos muestran un panorama bastante desalentador. Los índices de prevalencia son muy altos, si bien encontramos una variabilidad entre el 20% y el 60% (Archer, 2000; Chase, Treboux, O`Leary y Strassberg, 1998; Fernández-Fuertes y Fuertes-Martín, 2005; Hird, 2000; Lewis y Fremouw, 2000; ...Introduction or incentive of the thesis The study of dating relationships during adolescence has received an important interest by scientific community in the last decades. Developmental and educative studies have emphasized the relevant role of these relationships for adolescent’ development, in contrast to clinical studies that focused on the risk that dating behavior can have on adolescent health. The biological changes which accompany adolescence play an important role in the changes which occur in the interpersonal relationships of adolescents. With sexual maturity, changes in the levels of hormones and the development of secondary sexual characteristics, adolescents begin to feel sexual attraction for others. This results in changes in the quality and form of their social relations. Some adolescents move from being friends to being the object of desire of their peers. On other occasions a new peer becomes the recipient of a new and powerful feeling: love. From this new emotional perspective, many interpersonal encounters are focused on demonstrating (either implicitly or explicitly) one individual’s interest and attraction for another. One of the developmental tasks for adolescents during this age consists in learning to express their own desires and intentions to others, and reciprocally, to learn to receive such information from others according to cultural conventions and social rules (Ortega-Rivera, Sánchez y Ortega, 2010). When adolescents fail to interpret social keys from others or, in contrast, show difficulties in the expression of their sexual needs, peer interactions can be experienced as unwanted or harassed by certain adolescents. When sexual harassment occurs among adolescents, can leads on aggressive interactional styles that can be translated into dating relationships (Connolly y McIsasac, 2011), as a form of dating violence (Ortega y Sánchez, 2011). The prevalence rates of studies conducted in Europe and North America about dating aggression and victimization and sexual harassment among peers have been alarming and controversial, with indices which varies between 20% and 60% (Archer, 2000; Chase, Treboux, O`Leary y Strassberg, 1998; Fernández-Fuertes y Fuertes-Martín, 2005; Hird, 2000; Lewis y Fremouw, 2000; Menesini y Nocentini, 2008; Moffit, Caspi, Rutter y Silva, 2002; Muñoz-Rivas, Graña, O'Leary y González, 2007; Sánchez, Ortega-Rivera, Ortega y Viejo, 2008). Physical and psychological dating aggressive behaviors have been more studied than dating sexual violence. ..

Growth in Stress

We propose a new global risk index, Growth-in-Stress (GiS), that measures the expected decrease in a country GDP growth as the global factors, which drive world growth, are subject to stressful conditions. Stress is measured as the 95% contours of the joint probability distribution of the factors. With GDP growth rates of a sample of 87 countries in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund databases and for the period 1985 to 2015, we extract three global factors: a first world growth factor driven mainly by all industrial and emerging countries; a second factor driven by “other developing” countries in Africa and America; and a third factor that is mostly related to East Asian economies. We find that the average GiS across industrialized, emerging and other developing countries has been going down from 1987. Post 2008 financial crisis, mainly from 2011 on, the world overall has fallen in a state-of-complacency with the average GiS falling quite dramatically to reach the lowest levels of risk (0-1% potential drop in growth) in 2015. However, the dispersion within groups is quite wide. It is the smallest among industrialized countries and the largest among emerging and other developing countries. We also measure the factor stress on different quantiles of the DGP growth distribution of each country. We calculate an Armageddon-type event as we seek to find the 5% GiS quantile under 95% extreme factor events and find that it can be as large as an annual 20% drop in growth.Financial Support from the Spanish Government contract grant ECO2015-70331-C2-2-R (MINECO/FEDER) is gratefully acknowledged. We are also grateful for very helpful comments to participants at Time Series Workshop meeting (2018, Zaragoza) and at Conference on Statistical Methods for Big Data (2018, Madrid). González-Rivera acknowledges the financial support of the UC-Riverside Academic Senate grants. Any remaining errors are obviously our responsibility

Romantic relationships in adolescence: satisfaction, conflicts and dating violence

El presente estudio supone una primera aproximación descriptiva al estudio de la calidad de las relaciones sentimentales adolescentes y a la presencia de comportamientos violentos en estas primeras relaciones. Se entrevistó a 446 adolescentes de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y Bachillerato (47.50% chicos, 52.50% chicas, edad media 16.08 años) con relación a la satisfacción con sus relaciones de pareja, sus expectativas, grado de comunicación, presencia de conflictos, poder, comportamiento transgresivo y violencia. Los resultados descriptivos han mostrado que las relaciones de pareja durante la adolescencia son muy importantes para los chicos y chicas dado que el 90% de éstos afirmaron haber tenido alguna experiencia sentimental. Los adolescentes afirmaron estar muy satisfechos con sus relaciones sentimentales, siendo las chicas y los participantes de mayor edad los que más satisfacción y expectativas mostraron. Con relación a los problemas de violencia, los resultados han mostrado una implicación alta, aunque ocasional, de chicos y chicas con independencia de la edad y del comportamiento analizado: agresión y victimización.This study aims at analysing adolescents’ romantic relationships and dating violence. 446 Secondary Schools students were interviewed (47.50% boys, 52.50% girls, mean age 16.08 years old) in terms of satisfaction, expectations, communication, conflicts, transggressive orientation and dating violence. Results have showed that 90% of participants affirmed have had a sentimental experience, expressing how romantic relations in adolescence become a very important aspect in these years. Adolescents declared that they were very satisfied with their dating relations, and girls and older participants showed more satisfaction and future expectations than boys and younger ones. Dating violence was very present, but occasionally, among boys and girls. No differences were found either for age, sex, or for aggression and victimizatio

Efficacy evaluation of "Dat-e Adolescence": A dating violence prevention program in Spain

This study presents the first evaluation of Dat-e Adolescence, a dating violence prevention program aimed at adolescents in Spain. A cluster randomized control trial was used involving two groups (a control group and experimental group) and two waves (pre-test and posttest six months apart). 1,764 students from across seven state high schools in Andalucı ´a (southern Spain) participated in the study (856 in the control group and 908 in the experimental group); 52.3% were boys (n = 918), with ages ranging from 11 to 19 years (average age = 14.73; SD = 1.34). Efficacy evaluation was analyzed using Latent Change Score Models and showed that the program did not impact on physical, psychological or online aggression and victimization, nor did it modify couple quality. It was, however, effective at modifying myths about romantic love, improving self-esteem, and improving anger regulation, as a trend. These initial results are promising and represent one of the first prevention programs evaluated in this country. Future follow-up will allow us to verify whether these results remain stable in the medium term.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad PSI2013-45118-RMinisterio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad PSI-2017-86723-RMinisterio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte FPU2013/0083

El DAVIPOP: un programa de prevención de violencia en el cortejo y las parejas adolescentes

Pese al interés investigador y psicoeducativo que presenta el complejo fenómeno de la violencia en las primeras relaciones sentimentales adolescentes, son todavía pocos los programas de intervención evaluados desarrollados en nuestro país. Este trabajo presenta los primeros resultados relativos a la evaluación de la eficacia del programa educativo DaViPoP (Programa de Prevención de la violencia en el cortejo y parejas adolescentes), que ha sido configurado para desarrollar la competencia emocional y social para la gestión de la vida sentimental de la pareja y la prevención de la violencia en el cortejo y pareja adolescente. La investigación ha sido diseñada desde un modelo cuasi experimental con medidas repetidas pretest-postest en un grupo experimental y dos grupos de control y ha sido sometido a una evaluación cualitativa y cuantitativa. Los primeros resultados cuantitativos indican una mejora en las competencias para la gestión de la vida en pareja así como una reducción de la prevalencia del fenómeno, sobre todo en los chicos. Los resultados se discuten con relación a la literatura científica y a los resultados encontrados en programas de prevención desarrollados con anterioridad.Dating violence during adolescence is a complex phenomenon that has aroused the interest of scientific community, although there are few evaluated intervention programs developed in our country. This paper presents the first results concerning the evaluation of the effectiveness of the educational program DaViPoP (Adolescence Dating Violence Prevention Program), which has been configured to develop social and emotional competence for managing emotional life within the couple and the prevention of violence in dating couples. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design program has been developed with one experimental group and two control groups. To procedures (one qualitative and one quantitative) were made to evaluate the impact of the prevention program on the participants. The first quantitative results indicate an improvement in management skills within couples and a reduction in the prevalence of the phenomenon, especially in boys. The results are discussed in relation to the scientific literature and the findings of previous prevention programs.Ministerio de Innovación y Ciencia (España) PSI-2010-1724

Las relaciones sentimentales en la adolescencia: satisfacción, conflictos y violencia

This study aims at analysing adolescents' romantic relationships and dating violence. 446 Secondary Schools students were interviewed (47.50% boys, 52.50% girls, mean age 16.08 years old) in terms of satisfaction, expectations, communication, conflicts, transggressive orientation and dating violence. Results have showed that 90% of participants affirmed have had a sentimental experience, expressing how romantic relations in adolescence become a very important aspect in these years. Adolescents declared that they were very satisfied with their dating relations, and girls and older participants showed more satisfaction and future expectations than boys and younger ones. Dating violence was very present, but occasionally, among boys and girls. No differences were found either for age, sex, or for aggression and victimization.El presente estudio supone una primera aproximación descriptiva al estudio de la calidad de las relaciones sentimentales adolescentes y a la presencia de comportamientos violentos en estas primeras relaciones. Se entrevistó a 446 adolescentes de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y Bachillerato (47.50% chicos, 52.50% chicas, edad media 16.08 años) con relación a la satisfacción con sus relaciones de pareja, sus expectativas, grado de comunicación, presencia de conflictos, poder, comportamiento transgresivo y violencia. Los resultados descriptivos han mostrado que las relaciones de pareja durante la adolescencia son muy importantes para los chicos y chicas dado que el 90% de éstos afirmaron haber tenido alguna experiencia sentimental. Los adolescentes afirmaron estar muy satisfechos con sus relaciones sentimentales, siendo las chicas y los participantes de mayor edad los que más satisfacción y expectativas mostraron. Con relación a los problemas de violencia, los resultados han mostrado una implicación alta, aunque ocasional, de chicos y chicas con independencia de la edad y del comportamiento analizado: agresión y victimización

Peer sexual harassment in adolescent girls: A cross-national study (Spain-Italy)

International studies have concluded that sexual harassment among adolescents is more frequent than expected. However, estimations of sexual harassment vary according to different studies. Some of these differences can be explained in terms of the different dimensions and explicative models used. This descriptive study tried to contribute to this area of investigation testing different models of sexual harassment in a sample of 318 female adolescents (mean age 17.05 years old) of two European countries, Spain and Italy. Using confirmatory analyses and multiple group models in order to assess the measurement invariance across countries, results confirmed that a bi-dimensional model comprising a verbal/visual dimension and sexual harassment with physical contact fitted well. Fitzgerald’s model was also tested but fit indices failed to reach acceptable values. Results are discussed in relation to previous studies on this object and in terms of the implications for prevention and intervention programs on sexual harassment and courtship during adolescence.Los estudios internacionales sobre el acoso sexual en la adolescencia han mostrado que este fenómeno es más frecuente de lo esperado, aunque la prevalencia del acoso sexual varía de unos estudios a otros. Algunas de estas diferencias han sido explicadas en función de los modelos y dimensiones explicativas de las que parten los diferentes estudios. La presente estudio descriptivo intenta contribuir a esta línea de investigación, evaluando diferentes modelos explicativos del acoso sexual en 318 chicas adolescentes (edad media 17,05 años) de dos países europeos (España e Italia). Aplicando análisis confirmatorios y modelos de múltiples grupos para medir la invarianza en ambos países, los resultados mostraron que un modelo bi-dimensional, compuesto por la dimensión acoso verbal/visual y la dimensión acoso físico fue el que mejor ajustó los datos. El modelo de Fitzgerald también fue evaluado aunque los índices de ajuste no alcanzaron niveles tan satisfactorios. Los resultados se discuten con relación a las investigaciones previas en este campo y respecto a las implicaciones que estos resultados tienen para la prevención y la intervención sobre acoso sexual y cortejo en la adolescencia.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación de España HI2005-0452Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia Plan Nacional de I+D Proyecto SEJ-2007-60673-ED

Social support from developmental contexts and adolescent substance use and well-being: a comparative study of Spain and Portugal

The aim of this study was to analyse the contribution of social support from family, friend and school (teacher and classmate) contexts in substance use (tobacco and alcohol use) and well-being (life satisfaction and health-related quality of life). Participants were 5,784 Portuguese and 22,610 Spanish adolescents aged 11 to 16 years, from the 2014 edition of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) study in Portugal and Spain. Results showed that for a higher life satisfaction, family ( p < .001, partial η 2 = .032), teacher ( p < .001, partial η 2 = .018) and classmate ( p < .001, partial η 2 = .031) support were important in Portugal, and family ( p < .001, partial η 2 = .056) and friend ( p < .001, partial η 2 = .015) support in Spain. Similarly, for a better health-related quality of life, all the social support variables were relevant in Portugal (family: p < .001, partial η 2 = .063; teacher: p < .001, partial η 2 = .032; classmate: p < .001, partial η 2 = .054; friend: p < .001, partial η 2 = .034) and in Spain (family: p < .001, partial η 2 = .054; teacher: p < .001, partial η 2 = .014; classmate: p < .001, partial η 2 = .018; friend: p < .001, partial η 2 = .040). In contrast, only family support ( p < .001, partial η 2 = .014) was relevant in Portugal for tobacco use. Therefore, social support was more relevant for adolescent well-being than for adolescent substance use, and the most relevant source of support was family support, in both Spain and Portugal

Behavioral traits predicting cocaine-conditioned place reference in mice: role of anxiety adn the basolateral amygdala

Aims. The individual susceptibility to cocaine addiction, a factor of interest in the understanding and prevention of this disorder, may be predicted by certain behavioral traits. However, these are not usually taken into account in research, making it difficult to identify whether they are a cause or a consequence of drug use. Methods. Male C57BL/6J mice underwent a battery of behavioral tests (elevated plus maze, hole-board, novelty preference in the Y maze, episodic-like object recognition memory and forced swimming test), followed by a cocaine-conditioned place preference (CPP) training to assess the reinforcing effect of the drug. In a second study, we aimed to determine the existence of neurobiological differences between the mice expressing high or low CPP by studying the number of neurons in certain addiction-related structures: the medial prefrontal cortex, the basolateral amygdala and the ventral tegmental area. Results. Anxiety-like behaviors in the elevated plus maze successfully predicted the cocaine-CPP behavior, so that the most anxious mice were also more likely to search for cocaine in a CPP paradigm. In addition, these mice exhibited an increased number of neurons in the basolateral amygdala, a key structure in emotional response including anxiety expression, without differences in the others regions analyzed. Conclusions. Our results suggest a relevant role of anxiety as a psychological risk factor for cocaine vulnerability, with the basolateral amygdala as potential common neural center for both anxiety and addiction.Universidad de Málaga, Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. PSI2013-44901-P, FPU13/04819, CD12/00455, Red de Trastornos Adictivo