This article has a dual purpose. First, it proposes to investigate adolescents’ opinion and acceptance of the new online program called “Hero.” Second, this article studies the program’s effectiveness in promoting prosocial behavior. The sample included 51 men and women participants between the ages of 12 and 16 (average age 15.02; SD = 1.07; 49% men). All of the adolescents attended high school and belonged to a middle socioeconomic status. The results indicated that the majority of the users enjoyed participating in the Hero program and thought that it was easy to use and useful, that what they learned could be transferred to daily life, and that they would recommend the program to other adolescents. Moreover, the Hero intervention was effective in promoting prosocial behavior toward strangers and family members but not in promoting prosocial behavior toward friends.
technology with the contributions of Positive Psychology. The latter guides the way in which ICTs can be used to foster positive emotions, promote personal growth and contribute to social development. Positive Technology intends to improve personal experiences so as to enhance the well-being of human beings and promote the nurturing of strengths in people, organizations and societies. reviewing the state-of-art of Positive Technology by identifying its essential characteristics and objectives, as well as its most recent developments.
The current study was performed to assess the phenomenon known as Presence, to measure Anxiety responses, simulator sickness and autonomic activation in subjects of the general population. The sample consisted in 37 Argentine participants (15 male, 22 female) between ages 20 and 40; who were exposed to 3 virtual environments designed to research and treat phobias. Instruments utilized for this study were the Symptom Checklist 90-R, Acrophobia Questionnaire, Fear of Spiders Questionnaire, The Claustrophobia Questionnaire, Igroup Presence Questionnaire, Simulator Sickness Questionnaire and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. All virtual environments generated sufficient feeling of presence. Cybersickness was only registered in the Elevator scenario. The Apartment and Spiders environments have shown not to be anxiety triggers within this population. As for Elevator, a significant increase in the level of state anxiety was generated. A possible hypothesis to account for this fact might be that reported anxiety responds to movement simulated in the virtual scenario while on the other two scenarios the subjects remained static. The existence of a correlation between HRV and state anxiety has been analyzed and no significant relation has been found between the variables. Even though there is a relation between anxiety and presence, no significant relation has been found between anxiety and presence. Regarding sensory conflict, a follow up study in the Elevator environment should be done, eliminating movement and exposing subjects to the stimuli while static at different heights. Future studies should consider broadening the size of the sample and studying clinical population to compare results.
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