A hybrid approach with agent-based simulation and clustering for sociograms

In the last years, some features of sociograms have proven to be strongly related to the performance of groups. However, the prediction of sociograms according to the features of individuals is still an open issue. In particular, the current approach presents a hybrid approach between agent-based simulation and clustering for simulating sociograms according to the psychological features of their members. This approach performs the clustering extracting certain types of individuals regarding their psychological characteristics, from training data. New people can then be associated with one of the types in order to run a sociogram simulation. This approach has been implemented with the tool called CLUS-SOCI (an agent-based and CLUStering tool for simulating SOCIograms). The current approach has been experienced with real data from four different secondary schools, with 38 real sociograms involving 714 students. Two thirds of these data were used for training the tool, while the remaining third was used for validating it. In the validation data, the resulting simulated sociograms were similar to the real ones in terms of cohesion, coherence of reciprocal relations and intensity, according to the binomial test with the correction of Bonferroni

Profiles and risk factors for teen dating violence in Spain

Teen dating violence (TDV) refers to a wide range of partner-directed harmful behaviors among adolescents. Since it was first documented in the 1980s, there is a growing interest in TDV due to its potentially devastating mid- and long-term consequences. Aiming at the early detection of TDV onset with prevention purposes, research has focused on the detection of typologies of perpetrators and/or victims as well as on identifying risk and protective factors for its occurrence. Research with Spanish adolescents, however, is very limited. To fill this gap, we recruited a total of 2,319 adolescents from different regions in Spain, out of which, 1,079 reported having had a romantic partner during the last year. These filled out measures of TDV (perpetration and victimization), school aggression, hostile and benevolent sexism, empathy, assertiveness, psychological inflexibility (general measures), and psychological inflexibility with prejudice thoughts. A cluster analysis revealed that adolescents could be divided into two clusters as a function of their TDV profile: Cluster 1, including close to 76% of the sample (boys and girls), presented low TDV perpetration and victimization; Cluster 2, including 24% of the sample (boys and girls), presented higher TDV perpetration and victimization. Regression analyses revealed that, as compared to those in Cluster 1, adolescents in Cluster 2 were more likely to be older boys who scored high in benevolent sexism, overt and relational school aggression, and personal distress, and low in behavior regulation skills, perspective taking, and practical personal ability. We discuss the implications of these findings for the design of evidence-based TDV prevention campaigns

Impact of the happy classrooms programme on psychological well-being, school aggression, and classroom climate

Objectives This study sought to evaluate the efficacy of a brief version of the Happy Classrooms Programme in psychological well-being, school aggression, and positive classroom climate. Likewise, this study also aimed to identify which intervention effects could be attributed to the development of mindfulness. Finally, the last target of this study was to evaluate the implementation fidelity and the acceptability of the programme. Methods Multiple linear regression and longitudinal mediation analyses were performed with a sample of 524 students (49.8% boys and 50.2% girls) with a mean age of 13.6 years. Results Results provided evidence of the efficacy of the intervention in the majority of variables. For Mindfulness, Depressive Symptomatology, Perceived Stress, Competence, Emotional Attention, Identified Regulation, External Regulation, and Amotivation, the intervention proved efficacious only when pre-treatment levels of mindfulness were high, and sometimes also medium. For Self-esteem, Satisfaction with Life, Relatedness, Emotional Repair, Physical Aggression, Relational Aggression, Affiliation, and Teacher Support, intervention effects were irrespective of pre-treatment levels of mindfulness. Mediation analyses found evidence of longitudinal mediation effect of mindfulness on the relation between the intervention and most outcome variables. Implementation data showed that total time implemented by the teachers varied among them and that the programme was not highly acceptable by most students. Conclusions Our findings point out that Happy Classrooms Programme may promote psychological well-being and positive classroom climate, and reduce school aggression in students by increasing mindfulness levels

Preliminary studies on the reproduction and population dynamics of Monodonta lineata and Gibbula umbilicalis (Mollusca, Gastropoda) on the central coast of Asturias (NW Spain).

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