There is much evidence that demonstrates that programs and interventions based on the theoretical models of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) have been effective in the prevention of the sexual transmission of HIV. The objective of this work is to compare the effectiveness of both models in the prediction of condom use, distinguishing two components inside the variable Perceived Behavioural Control of the TPB model: self-efficacy and control. The perspective of gender differences is also added. The study was carried out in a sample of 601 Portuguese and Spanish university students. The results show that the females have a higher average in all the TPB variables than males, except in the frequency of condom use: females request the use of condoms less frequently than males. On the other hand, for both females and males the TPB model predicts better condom-use intention than the TRA. However there are no differences between the two models in relation to the prediction of condom-use behaviour. For prediction of intention, the most outstanding variable among females is attitude, while among males they are subjective norm and self-efficacy. Finally, we analyze the implications of these data from a theoretical and practical point of view.

Studies addressing the recognition of emotions in blind or deaf participants have been carried out only with children and adolescents. Due to these age limits, such studies do not clarify the long-term effects of vision and hearing disabilities on emotion recognition in adults. We assessed the ability to recognize basic emotions in 15 deaf adults (aged 32.4 ± 8.1 yrs) and in 15 blind adults (48.3 ± 10.5 yrs). Auditory and visual stimuli expressing six basic emotional states were presented to participants (Florida Affect Battery). Participants also performed an empathy test. Deaf participants showed difficulties in emotion recognition tasks compared to the typical hearing participants; however, differences were only statistically reliable for Facial Emotion Discrimination and Naming tasks (specifically, naming expressions of fear). Deaf participants also revealed inferior levels of cognitive empathy. Concerning blind participants, their performance was lower than the controls' only when the task required the evaluation of emotional prosody while ignoring the semantic content of the sentence. Overall, although deaf and blind participants performed reasonably well on tasks requiring recognition of basic emotions, sensory loss may hinder their social perception skills when processing subtle emotions or when the extraction of simultaneous prosodic and semantic information is required.

Under the perspective of the Theory of Planned Behavior, the objective of this study was to know the gender differences in the variables involved in the use of effective preventive measures in sexual relations against HIV in a sample of university students from Spain and Portugal. Furthermore, it is examined whether these factors produce different predictions concerning the adoption of safe sexual behaviour for young man and women in each country. The sample consisted of 683 university students, 319 Portuguese (64% female and 36% male) from the University of Algarve and 364 Spanish students (51% female and 49% male) from the University of Huelva. Data were obtained by means of a questionnaire. The data revealed that there are gender differences which apply in both countries, highlighting that the young women have more positive attitudes, greater perceived behavioural control and intention of condom use than young men. However, they protect themselves less that their male counterparts: the percentage of females who say using condoms as a contraceptive method is less than the percentage of males, and especially with their steady partners. The results are discussed in relation to gender role norms, to have a steady partner or not, gender relations, the associated meaning to sexual relations for men and women and their implications for the design of sexual educational programmes for them.

Background: Developmental concepts of ‘Theory of Mind' (ToM) suggest that this cognitive domain is an innate human capacity requiring input from the social environment to mature. Research suggests substantial individual differences in ToM, depending on childhood experiences, genetics, and the presence or absence of a neuropsychiatric disorder. None of the existing ToM tests for adult populations have been made available in Portuguese. Accordingly, the main objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Portuguese versions of the Faux Pas (FP) Recognition Test and the ToM Picture Stories Task. Sampling and Methods: Both tests were given to a sample of 200 Portuguese adults (125 women and 75 men) aged between 18 and 60 years. Results and Conclusions: The psychometric analyses of the results indicate that the Portuguese version of the FP Recognition Test is appropriate for use in research and clinical settings, providing a composite score that reliably measures the ability to infer the thoughts and feelings of others in a ‘faux pas' situation (Cronbach's α = 0.82). However, the ToM Picture Stories Task did not show acceptable psychometric qualities.

Previous research has shown an association between emotions, particularly social emotions, and moral judgments. Some studies suggested an association between blunted emotion and the utilitarian moral judgments observed in patients with prefrontal lesions. In order to investigate how prefrontal brain damage affects moral judgment, we asked a sample of 29 TBI patients (12 females and 17 males) and 41 healthy participants (16 females and 25 males) to judge 22 hypothetical dilemmas split into three different categories (non-moral, impersonal and personal moral). The TBI group presented a higher proportion of affirmative (utilitarian) responses for personal moral dilemmas when compared to controls, suggesting an atypical pattern of utilitarian judgements. We also found a negative association between the performance on recognition of social emotions and the proportion of affirmative responses on personal moral dilemmas. These results suggested that the preference for utilitarian responses in this type of dilemmas is accompanied by difficulties in social emotion recognition. Overall, our findings suggest that deontological moral judgments are associated with normal social emotion processing and that frontal lobe plays an important role in both emotion and moral judgment.

Background:The mechanisms and triggers of the attentional bias in social anxiety are not yet fully determined, and the modulating role of personality traits is being increasingly acknowledged.Aims:Our main purpose was to test whether social anxiety is associated with mechanisms of hypervigilance, avoidance (static biases), vigilance-avoidance or the maintenance of attention (dynamic biases). Our secondary goal was to explore the role of personality structure in shaping the attention bias.Method:Participants with highvslow social anxiety and different personality structures viewed pairs of faces (free-viewing eye-tracking task) representing different emotions (anger, happiness and neutrality). Their eye movements were registered and analysed for both whole-trial (static) and time-dependent (dynamic) measures.Results:Comparisons between participants with high and low social anxiety levels did not yield evidence of differences in eye-tracking measures for the whole trial (latency of first fixation, first fixation direction, total dwell time), but the two groups differed in the time course of overt attention during the trial (dwell time across three successive time segments): participants with high social anxiety were slower in disengaging their attention from happy faces. Similar results were obtained using a full-sample, regression-based analysis.Conclusion:Our results speak in favour of a maintenance bias in social anxiety. Preliminary results indicated that personality structure may not affect the maintenance (dynamic) bias of socially anxious individuals, although depressive personality structures may favour manifestations of a (static) hypervigilance bias.