There has been increasing interest in team learning processes in recent years. Researchers have investigated the impact of team learning on team effectiveness and analyzed the enabling conditions for the process, but team learning in virtual teams has been largely ignored. This study examined the relationship between team learning and effectiveness in virtual teams, as well as the role of team beliefs about interpersonal context. Data from 48 teams performing a virtual consulting project over 4 weeks indicate a mediating effect of team learning on the relationship between beliefs about the interpersonal context (psychological safety, task interdependence) and team effectiveness (satisfaction, viability). These findings suggest the importance of team learning for developing effective virtual teams.

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is a prosocial activity with similarities to volunteerism. The purpose of this work is to contribute new evidence about the relevance to OCB of two models of sustained volunteerism, functional analysis and role identity theory. A total of 983 Spanish employees at 49 organizations completed surveys measuring amount of OCB, motives for engaging in citizenship behavior, and the degree to which respondents developed an organizational citizen role identity. The results showed that both motives and role identity were significant predictors of OCB, with motive partially mediating the role identity-OCB relationship. The findings suggest that similar mechanisms are involved in sustaining volunteerism and OCB.

The purpose of this study has been to test, with a sample of 193 Professors of the University of Seville, a structural model on the mediating role of personal perceived competence in the appearance of burnout syndrome and stress symptoms under potentially stressful work conditions. The instruments used to evaluate were a socio-demographic and work-related data questionnaire, The Maslach Burnout Inventory (M.B.I.), The Labour Scale of Stress and the Magallanes Stress Scale. The model of strategy implementation and LISREL 8.71 were used. The estimated model was adjusted satisfactorily, ascertaining the mediating effect of perceived competence in the effect exerted by the work conditions studied on the depersonalization and personal fulfillment, as well as in the appearance of stress symptoms. The effect on the emotional exhaustion dimension was not confirmed. The latter also acted on the estimated model as a mediating variable, facilitating the negative impact of stressors on emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment.

This paper reports a study of the characteristics of psychological abuse strategies deployed in the workplace (mobbing or workplace bullying). Based on a literature review, the aim of the present study is two fold: firstly to propose a new taxonomy of mobbing strategies and to provide an operational definition for each of them, and secondly, to assess this taxonomy with the aid of several experts, by using a Delphi survey, and to evaluate the severity of each of the mobbing strategies. The experts were asked to evaluate the adequacy and the severity of the definitions for each mobbing strategy. Thirty experts working in various professions (psychology, medicine, law, sociology, etc.) participated in a two-round Delphi survey. The experts estimated that the new taxonomy and the operational definitions were appropriate, establishing content and construct validity. They ranked the workplace bullying strategies in terms of descending importance: strategies of direct nature, followed by indirect strategies. Theoretical implications of the study, its limitations and future research are discussed.

This paper explores and analyzes the relations between emotions and well-being in a sample of aviation personnel, passenger crew (flight attendants). There is an increasing interest in studying the influence of emotions and its role as psychosocial factors in the work environment as they are able to act as facilitators or shock absorbers. The contrast of the theoretical models by using traditional parametric techniques requires a large sample size to the efficient estimation of the coefficients that quantify the relations between variables. Since the available sample that we have is small, the most common size in European enterprises, we used the maximum entropy principle to explore the emotions that are involved in the psychosocial risks. The analyses show that this method takes advantage of the limited information available and guarantee an optimal estimation, the results of which are coherent with theoretical models and numerous empirical researches about emotions and well-being.

The ‘national environment’, which includes belief and value systems, shapes the way individuals, groups and organisations perceive the world around them and determines how they react to ongoing changes. This paper analyses the role of different context's effects on intellectual capital by means of an empirical investigation of 112 Small to Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the Spanish and Moroccan telecommunication industries. Within the investigation, repeated ANOVA were used, which were validated by factor analysis. Results support that Spanish SMEs are more positively associated with higher levels of human, structural and relational capital. The meaningful differences are clearly found in the ‘structural capital’. Our findings open avenues for further research to explore how governments can facilitate learning and unlearning environments in SME communities. These findings have important implications for general intellectual capital theories, as they suggest that there is no guarantee that intellectual capital theories developed within the cultural context of one particular country can be applied in another with good effect. National contexts provide the environment for learning, which in turn may have the effect of adequately improving intellectual capital.

Differences and similarities between 130 volunteers who remain for more than eight years in the same non-profit organization and 110 volunteers who quit during the first year were analyzed in this paper. Both groups were chosen from a sample of 851 volunteers that were working as volunteers when we assessed the independent variables (Time 1). After a 12-month follow-up (Time 2), 209 (25%) of them had dropped out and 642 (75%) continued in the same organization. Using the previous time, we formed two groups made up of those who dropped out and had been in the organization less than a year and those who continued and had been in the organization more than 8 years. Results show that differences and similarities between both groups are coherent with the three-stage model of volunteer's duration (Chacón, Vecina, & Dávila, 2007). This model includes the functional approach of volunteers' motivations (Clary & Snyder, 1991), and the role identity approach (Callero, 1985), and indicates that people will remain as volunteers insofar as this satisfies the motivations that are relevant for them at the first stage, they develop organizational commitment at the second stage, and they develop role identity as volunteers at the third stage. More specifically, results show that it is possible to predict 85% of the cases correctly using seven variables. Volunteers who remain after eight years feel a higher level of emotional exhaustion, a higher level of organizational commitment, and a strong role identity as volunteers. They are also highly satisfied with the friendships in the organization and have a stronger intention to remain at the long term (2 years).

As part of a larger research project aimed to understand the impact of asthma in the psychological adjustment of children, this study focuses in the identification of factors associated with this process. The sample of this study consisted of 89 children, aged 8 to 12 with physician diagnosed asthma. To assess children's adjustment, the Portuguese versions of the following instruments were used: School-age Temperament Inventory (McClowry, 1995) Schoolagers Coping Strategies Inventory (Ryan-Wenger, 1990); Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory – PedsQL (Varni, Seid & Kurtin, 2001); The Self-perception Profile for Children (Harter, 1985), Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach,1991); Social Skills Rating System (Gresham & Elliot, 1990). The results revealed that negative reactivity predicts the level of anxiety/depression, task persistence and perceived coping efficacy predicts social skills and that self-esteem is a significant predictor of the perceived quality of life. A significant proportion of shared variance was also found what seems to confirm the existence of multi-determination in the process of adjustment. The main conclusion is that two dimensions of temperament (negative reactivity and task persistence), as well as perceived coping efficacy and self-esteem, play a significant role in influencing the psychological adjustment of children with asthma.

This study has examined bio-socio-demographic and psychopathological factors probably associated with unhealthy eating patterns among university students and to estimate a multifactorial model following the associated factors by gender. Adjusted odds ratios were calculated to describe associations on basis of Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) stratified by gender in a representative sample of Spanish university students (n = 2551). The high EDI scorers for both sexes presented higher prevalence of dieting, body dissatisfaction, levels of psychopathology and lower self-esteem than the low EDI scorers. The results suggest that older students and higher self-esteem scores present lower scores in the EDI. In the female population, depression, paranoid dimension, dieting and body dissatisfaction were associated with population with unhealthy eating patterns. In the male sample, dieting, body dissatisfaction and interpersonal sensibility were also associated with unhealthy eating patterns. The results corroborate that abnormal eating patterns tend to affect specific vulnerable groups. We do not know the precise mechanisms through which these risk behaviors and attitudes, such as dieting or body dissatisfaction, may facilitate the later development of an eating disorder.

International consensus has been achieved on the existence of several dysfunctional beliefs underlying the development and/or maintenance of the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Nevertheless, questions such as the dimensionality of the belief domains and the existence of OCD-specific dysfunctional beliefs still remain inconclusive. The present paper addresses these topics through two different studies. Study 1: A series of confirmatory factor analyses (N= 573 non-clinical subjects) were carried out on the Obsessive Beliefs Spanish Inventory-Revised (OBSI-R), designed to assess dysfunctional beliefs hypothetically related to OCD. An eight-factor model emerged as the best factorial solution: responsibility, over-importance of thoughts, thought-action fusion-likelihood, thought action fusion-morality, importance of thought control, overestimation of threat, intolerance of uncertainty and perfectionism. Study 2: The OBSI-R and other symptom measures were administered to 75 OCD patients, 22 depressed patients, and 25 non-OCD anxious patients. Results indicated that, although OCD patients differed from their non-clinical counterparts on all of the OBSI-R subscales, no evidence of OCD-specificity emerged for any of the belief domains measured, as the OCD subjects did not differ from the other two clinical groups of patients.

The present study aimed to examine the levels and interactions of family burden (FB) and expressed emotion (EE) in first episode psychosis (FEP) patients and, secondly, to observe the potential change after a brief psychoeducational group intervention implemented in a real world clinical setting. Twenty-three key relatives of FEP patients received a brief psychoeducational group intervention. FB and EE were assessed before and after the intervention. EE-change and correlations between variables were examined. Half of the sample of key-relatives showed high levels of EE. No severe family burden was observed. FB and EE did not change after the intervention. Family subjective and objective burden were correlated with emotional overinvolvement, but not with criticism. Brief psychoeducational groups may not be sufficient to reduce FB and EE associated to the experience of caregiving for a family member with a first-episode psychotic disorder.

The current investigation, framed within the emotional cognitive science field, was conducted with three patients with major depression. They participated in a therapeutic process which involved EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). Data were obtained in the clinical practice through a longitudinal one subject study design, including: emotional valence identification within affective priming experiments; and depressive emotional representation studies, the data of which was analyzed using multi-dimensional scaling. The first ones had the purpose of observing the therapeutic impact over the emotional cognitive bias mechanism regarding depresogenic words related to traumatic experiences; and the second, to analyze modifications on depressive schemata. The results showed that EMDR had a positive effect both on emotional cognitive processing and on long-term memory conceptual organization. In the discussion section, interesting remarks are made on the incorporation of emotional cognitive science tools to the EMDR clinical practice.

Emotional suppression has played an important role in the research on psychosocial factors related to cancer. It has been argued to be an important psychological factor predicting worse psychosocial adjustment in people with cancer and it may mediate health outcomes. The reference instrument in the research on emotional suppression is the Courtauld Emotional Control Scale (CECS). The present study analysed construct validity of a new Spanish adaptation of the CECS in a sample of 175 breast cancer patients. The results confirmed the proposal by Watson and Greer claiming that the CECS is composed of three subscales that measure different dimensions, but not independent, from emotional control. The present Spanish version of the CECS showed high internal consistency in each subscale as well as the total score. According to Derogatis (BSI-18) criteria, emotional suppression predicts clinically significant distress. In short, our results support the reliability, validity and utility of this Spanish adaptation of the CECS in clinical and research settings.

This study was conducted in order to determine factor structure and reliability of STAXI-2-AX/EX (Spielberger, 1999) and to calculate the correlation between STAXI-2-AX/EX and the Housewives Burnout Questionnaire (CUBAC). The study sample included 226 housewives. Dimensional structure was estimated using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Factor analysis results of STAXI-2-AX/EX showed that a four related factors model had an adequate goodness of fit, eliminating three items. Regarding the CUBAC, a two related factors structure presented the best goodness of fit, which improve if five items were eliminated. Finally, as we expected, the correlation between the two scales was positive (r = .38. We suggest that this study should be replicated in other countries.

Two studies evaluated the psychometric properties and the latent structure of the Portuguese version of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) in a large Brazilian college student sample. Results indicated that PSWQ had an adequate internal consistency. Exploratory factor analyses yielded a two-factor solution. One factor was related to the worry presence and incorporated all the non-reversed items. The other factor was associated to worry absence and incorporated all the reversed items. Confirmatory factor analysis leaded to a three-factor solution. One factor included all the PSWQ items whereas the two other factors were linked to the reversed and non-reversed worded items. Correlations coefficients of these two reversed and non-reversed factors with the total scores of the PSWQ and the trait form of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory suggest that PSWQ has a single meaningful construct.

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which the Spanish POMS assesses the same factors as the original form of the questionnaire. We started from a version with 63 items, representing seven conceptual dimensions. This version was administered to a sample of 364 adult athletes. In the whole sample, exploratory factor analytic findings suggested a more parsimonious measurement model, with 44 items and 6 first-order factors. Then the data from said sample were randomly divided into two sets, each containing about 50% of the subjects. The fit of the first sample set (n = 166) to the proposed model was adequate. Four of the main goodness-of-fit indices exhibited the following values: CFI = .95, NNFI = .95, SRMR = .083, and RMSEA = .064. We tested the same model in the second data set (n = 198), in which the fit was also acceptable, with values of .95, .94, .088, and .066 for CFI, NNFI, SRMR, and RMSEA, respectively. In addition, we used multi-group confirmatory factor analysis to provide evidence on the invariance of the model.

The aim of this study was to assess the factorial structure of the Brazilian version of CSAI-2, using several structures suggested in previous studies. Two samples consisted of Brazilian soccer players, 266 from regional level (age 22.87 ± 4.08 years; athletic experience 11.32 ± 4.15 years) and 263 from national level (age 23.16 ± 4.37 years; athletic experience 11.11 ± 4.78 years) were used. The CSAI-2 is a 27-item inventory that measures negativism, physiological activation and self-confidence in a competitive setting. The results of CFA according to the original structure showed some inadequacy of the model. The model proposed by Cox, Martens, Russell (2003), composed of three factors (17-item), demonstrated better adjustment to the regional level sample (χ2/df = 1.871, CFI = .934, GFI = .916, RMSEA = .057), while the model suggested by Coelho, Vasconcelos-Raposo, Fernandes (2007), composed of two factors (18-item), adapted better to the national level sample (χ2/df = 1.701, CFI = .924, GFI = .914, RMSEA = .052). When we analyzed the two samples together, Coelho et al. (2007) was the better model, because it displayed greater invariance. The use of this model was suggested in the assessment of intensity of negative thoughts and the subsequent confirmation of its psychometric properties is recommended.

The language of personality traits includes single-word trait descriptors, and longer phrases or sentences. Evidence has accumulated that abstract, semantic relationships among single words have the same underlying structure as the empirical relationships when words are applied to individuals. The present study examines whether these two kinds of structure are also isomorphic for longer trait descriptors. Empirical descriptions and judgements of semantic similarity were collected among the descriptors comprising the California Child Q-set, or CCQ, and analysed with multidimensional scaling. Canonical correlation showed the solutions to be closely related to one another, and to independent sets of ratings available for the CCQ items. Informants' similarity judgements were not affected by the context in which they were made. The dominant dimensions of the solutions reproduce dimensions found previously for the single-word personality lexicon, indicating the two trait-descriptive languages to be closely parallel.

Despite widespread interest in ambiguity tolerance and other informationrelated individual differences, existing measures are conceptually dispersed and psychometrically weak. This paper presents the Spanish version of MSTAT-II, a short, stimulus-oriented, and psychometrically improved measure of an individual's orientation toward ambiguous stimuli. Results obtained reveal adequate reliability, validity, and temporal stability. These results support the use of MSTAT-II as an adequate measure of ambiguity tolerance.

An important methodological concern of any research based on a person-environment (P-E) fit approach is the operationalization of the fit, which imposes some measurement requirements that are rarely empirically tested with statistical methods. Among them, the assessment of the P and E components along commensurate dimensions is possibly the most cited one. This paper proposes to test the equivalence across the P and E measures by analyzing the measurement invariance of a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis model. From a methodological point of view, the distinct aspect of this approach within the context of P-E fit research is that measurement invariance is assessed in a repeated measures design. An example illustrating the procedure in a person-organization (P-O) fit dataset is provided. Measurement invariance was tested at five different hierarchical levels: (1) configural, (2) first-order factor loadings, (3) second-order factor loadings, (4) residual variances of observed variables, and (5) disturbances of first-order factors. The results supported the measurement invariance across the P and O measures at the third level. The implications of these findings for P-E fit studies are discussed.