Greater traditionalism predicts COVID-19 precautionary behaviors across 27 societies.

People vary both in their embrace of their society's traditions, and in their perception of hazards as salient and necessitating a response. Over evolutionary time, traditions have offered avenues for addressing hazards, plausibly resulting in linkages between orientations toward tradition and orientations toward danger. Emerging research documents connections between traditionalism and threat responsivity, including pathogen-avoidance motivations. Additionally, because hazard-mitigating behaviors can conflict with competing priorities, associations between traditionalism and pathogen avoidance may hinge on contextually contingent tradeoffs. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a real-world test of the posited relationship between traditionalism and hazard avoidance. Across 27 societies (N = 7844), we find that, in a majority of countries, individuals' endorsement of tradition positively correlates with their adherence to costly COVID-19-avoidance behaviors; accounting for some of the conflicts that arise between public health precautions and other objectives further strengthens this evidence that traditionalism is associated with greater attention to hazards.

Jealousy protest to a social rival compared to a nonsocial rival in Chilean infants 10-20 months' old.

Jealousy protests have been linked to the intrusion of social rivals challenging infants' exclusive access to maternal care and resources that typically accompany attachment. Previous studies revealed that the experimental presentation of social rivals evokes protest in as early as 6 months old infants. This study replicated research on jealousy protests in a novel language and sociocultural context with 10-20 months old infants. We compared protests of 45 children when their mothers attended to each of the rivals and controlled for attachment dimensions. As hypothesized, infants had a stronger jealousy protest to the social rival, and their response was associated with attachment avoidance. We concluded that our results contribute to evidence on jealousy protest as an evolutionary rooted phenomenon that favors the mother's attention in a social rivalry scenario over nonsocial stimuli. Attachment avoidance may be a precluding factor of jealousy when faced with a social rival scenario that deserves further research.

Assessing Alexithymia: Psychometric Properties of the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire in a Spanish-Speaking Sample.

Alexithymia is a trait composed of difficulties identifying feelings (DIF), difficulties describing feelings (DDF), and externally orientated thinking (EOT). It is an important transdiagnostic risk factor for psychosomatic disorders and other types of emotion-based psychopathologies, and can reduce the efficacy of some treatment approaches. Alexithymia assessments are therefore important in psychiatric and research settings. The Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire (PAQ) was recently developed to enable more comprehensive alexithymia assessments, however, its psychometric properties need further examination and it is so far only available in English. In this study, we sought to address this by translating the PAQ into Spanish and testing its psychometric properties in an adult sample from Chile (N = 370). Confirmatory factor analyses found the PAQ to have a theoretically congruent factor structure, supporting the contemporary status of alexithymia as a multifaceted construct and the PAQ's capacity to assess the DIF, DDF, and EOT facets of alexithymia across negative and positive emotions. All subscale and composite scores had high internal consistency reliability, and demonstrated good concurrent and discriminant validity. The PAQ therefore appears to provide a robust and detailed alexithymia profile. This Spanish version should help to enable more comprehensive cross-cultural research into alexithymia and its role in and psychological disorders.

Chilean Version of the Empathy Quotient (EQ) Scale: Adaptation and Psychometric Properties.

We evaluated the psychometric properties of the empathy quotient (EQ) scale translated to Spanish in Chile. We estimated its structural validity, and its construct validity with other convergent measures of empathy and attachment, as well an inversely associated construct such as aggression. We used a general sample of students and community individuals (n = 336). Participants completed the EQ, Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), and Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ). Another exclusively community group (n = 102) completed Collins Adult Attachment scale and the EQ. CFA and ESEM analyses confirmed the structural model fit of the data to three previously reported dimensions of the EQ: cognitive empathy (CE), emotional reactivity (ER) and social skills (SS). Sex-differences in emotional reactivity, and the predicted relationships with the convergent measures were observed. The current Chilean version of the EQ resulted in an appropriate multidimensional measurement of empathy. Finally, providing a specific social skills dimension extends the traditional conception of cognitive and affective empathy to the social realm in the Chilean context.

Adaptación y análisis psicométrico de la Escala Gilliam para evaluar trastorno de Asperger / Adaptation and psychometric analysis of the Gilliam Asperger’ Disorder Scale

La Escala Gilliam para evaluar Transtorno Asperger (Gilliam Asperger’s Disorder Scale, GADS) es una evaluación de calificación conductual, cuyo propósito es ayudar a que los profesionales diagnostiquen el Síndrome de Asperger (SA). Esta escala se utiliza para evaluar sujetos entre los 3 y 22 años y puede ser completada por cualquier persona que tenga contacto regular con un sujeto con SA. Los únicos estudios psicométricos queso conocen con resultados favorables son los de la muestra normativa. Es por esto que esta investigación intenta responder si la GADS conserva las propiedades psicométricas de la muestra normativa al aplicarla en la población chilena con SA. Se contó con una muestra no probabilística intencional compuesta por 36 sujetasen la fase piloto y 111 sujetos en la fase final. Las subescalas obtuvieron un alpha de Cronbach entre 0,73 y0,87, mientras que la escala global obtuvo 0,92. Se realizó un análisis factorial exploratorio, del cual se obtuvo una solución factorial de 8 factores en la fase final. Los resultados permiten concluir que la GADS cuenta con propiedades psicométricas adecuadas, lo que significa que es un instrumento confiable y válido para ser utilizado en la población chilena.

The Gilliam Asperger’s Disorder Scale (GADS) is a norm-referenced assessment designed to help professionals in Asperger Syndrome (AS) diagnosis. This scale is used to evaluate subjects between 3 and 22 years old and it can be completed by anyone who has regular contact with a subject with AS. The only known psychometric studies with positive results are those of the normative sample. Thus this research attempts to explain whether GADS retains the psychometric properties of the normative sample when applied to the Chilean population with AS. To this purpose it was selected a probabilistic intentional sample compose of 36 subjects in the pilot phase and 111 subjects in the final phase. The subscales obtained a Cronbach’s alpha between 0,73 and 0,87, while the global scored 0,92. It was carried out an exploratory factor analysis, thought which it was obtained a factor solution of 8 in the final phase. The results obtained allow to conclude that GADS has adequate psychometric properties, which means GADS is a valid and reliable instrument to be applied to Chilean population.