This study focuses on parent–child book reading and its connection to the development of a theory of mind. First, parents were asked to report about frequency of parent–child storybook reading at home. Second, mothers were asked to read four picture-books to thirty-four children between 4;0 and 5;0. Both frequency of parent–child storybook reading at home, and mother's use of mental state terms in picture-books reading tasks were significantly associated with success on false belief tasks, after partialling out a number of potential mediators such as age of children, verbal IQ, paternal education, and words used by mothers in joint picture-book reading. Among the different mental state references (cognitive terms, desires, emotions and perceptions), it was found that the frequency and variety of cognitive terms, but also the frequency of emotional terms correlated positively with children's false belief performance. Relationships between mental state language and theory of mind are discussed.

Mothers read stories to their children (N=41) aged between 3.3 years and 5.11 years old, and children then completed two false-belief tasks. One year later, mothers read a story to 37 of those children who were also given four tasks to assess their advanced understanding of mental states. Mothers' early use of cognitive verbs in picture-book reading correlated with their children's later understanding of mental states. Some pragmatic aspects of maternal input correlated with children's later outcomes. Two different factors in mothers' cognitive discourse were identified, suggesting a zone of proximal development in children's understanding of mental states.

Bullying behavior alters the way in which students coexist together in the classroom and negatively affects adolescents’ well-being. Research highlights the importance of emotional skills in promoting positive youth development and optimal social functioning. Therefore, education in these skills is a potential target for interventions aimed at reducing cyberbullying and promoting satisfaction with life during adolescence. This study analyzes the impact of an emotion education program in adolescents to promote classroom coexistence and well-being. The sample comprised 148 students from 7th and 8th grade of secondary school aged between 12 and 15 years (Mage = 12.63, SDage = 0.74; 57% girls). A quasi-experimental design with longitudinal data collection was used in this study with randomized classroom assignment to the experimental group and the control group. The intervention program was based on the emotional intelligence model of Mayer and Salovey (1997). Its objective was to develop adolescents’ emotional skills to improve the quality of interpersonal relationships and reduce conflicts between peers, positively influencing coexistence and well-being. The intervention took place in eleven sessions during school hours over a period of 3 months. Participants completed the emotional competence questionnaire, the cyberbullying scale and the life satisfaction scale before (T1), immediately after (T2), and 6 months after the intervention (T3). The results showed that the intervention program reduced victimization and assault via mobile phones and the Internet in T2 and T3. In the follow-up (T3), the intervention group had enhanced emotional perception and regulation skills and reported an increase in life satisfaction in comparison to the control group. Our findings suggest that implementing classroom intervention programs to develop students’ emotional competencies could be beneficial for their subjective well-being and peer coexistence.

Registro de acceso restringido Este recurso no está disponible en acceso abierto por política de la editorial. No obstante, se puede acceder al texto completo desde la Universitat Jaume I o si el usuario cuenta con suscripción. Registre d'accés restringit Aquest recurs no està disponible en accés obert per política de l'editorial. No obstant això, es pot accedir al text complet des de la Universitat Jaume I o si l'usuari compta amb subscripció. Restricted access item This item isn't open access because of publisher's policy. The full--text version is only available from Jaume I University or if the user has a running suscription to the publisher's contents.

SummaryAlthough a large body of research has studied the factors associated to general recidivism, predictive validity of these factors has received less attention. Andrews and Bonta's General Personality and Social Psychological Model (2006) Protective factors differentiated between recidivists and nonrecidivists in all factors. Hence, results showed that not only individual but also social factors would be crucial in predicting recidivism.Key words: Recidivism, risk and protective factors, delinquency, YLS/CMI, juvenile offender. 3Criminal behaviour, and in particular juvenile crime, may be regarded as an issue of major concern in today's society. Although the general level of youth offending does not seem to have increased, there has been a steady rise in recorded violent crime since 1991 (National Health Service in England and Wales, 2004;Rennie & Dolan, 2010).Specifically, in Spain (where minors from 14 to 17 years old are judged under the juvenile system), an increase in general violent crimes, sexual assaults and severe crimes in the family and school context have been found in the last ten years (Benavente, 2009;Capdevila, Ferrer & Luque, 2005;Pérez, 2010). Moreover, the reoffending rate ranged between 5 and 25%, depending on the type of crime (Capdevila et al., 2005;Iborra, Rodríguez, Serrano & Martínez, 2011). In this context, intervention in youth recidivism becomes critical, that is, to help preventing them from continuing their criminal career into adulthood, on a life-course-persistent trajectory (Moffit, 2006).Recidivism is not only a concern because of the impact on the public, but because of the impact on the quality of life of recidivating juveniles: increasing levels of alcohol/drug use (Becker, Kerig, Lim & Ezechukwu, 2012), personal discomfort and conflict (Gendreau, Little & Goggin, 1996), psychopathy (Salekin, 2008) and even high mortality risk (Coffey, Lovett, Cini, Patton, Wolfe & Moran, 2004).The concept of risk factors, and consequently protective factors, has become very important. A risk factor for offending is a variable that predicts a high probability of later offending (Farrington, Loeber & Ttofi, 2012;Ribeaud & Eisner, 2010). Some authors (Haines & Case, 2008) point out that risk factors can vary greatly. The same diversity applies to protective factors, which can be considered variables that predict a low probability of offending among persons exposed to risk factors (Farrington et al., 2012;Hartman, Turner, Daigle, Exum & Cullen, 2009 role. This study therefore includes both types of factors, while at the same time recognizing their independent nature (Haines & Case, 2008;Hoge, Andrews & Leschied, 1996). Social learning theories (Catalano & Hawkins, 1996;Andrews & Bonta, 2006) try to structure the wide range of risk and protective factors in accordance with their theoretical assumptions. These theories are mainly based on the fact that behaviour is interiorized through interaction with the environment, so criminal conduct will be more likely in youths who perceive more rewar...

No abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the combined effects of trait emotional intelligence (EI) and feelings on healthy adolescents' stress. Identifying the extent to which adolescent stress varies with trait emotional differences and the feelings of adolescents is of considerable interest in the development of intervention programs for fostering youth well-being. To attain this goal, self-reported questionnaires (perceived stress, trait EI, and positive/negative feelings) and biological measures of stress (hair cortisol concentrations, HCC) were collected from 170 adolescents (12-14 years old). Two different methodologies were conducted, which included hierarchical regression models and a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The results support trait EI as a protective factor against stress in healthy adolescents and suggest that feelings reinforce this relation. However, the debate continues regarding the possibility of optimal levels of trait EI for effective and adaptive emotional management, particularly in the emotional attention and clarity dimensions and for female adolescents.

No abstract