Affect is involved in many psychological phenomena, but a descriptive structure, long sought, has been elusive. Valence and arousal are fundamental, and a key question-the focus of the present study-is the relationship between them. Valence is sometimes thought to be independent of arousal, but, in some studies (representing too few societies in the world) arousal was found to vary with valence. One common finding is that arousal is lowest at neutral valence and increases with both positive and negative valence: a symmetric V-shaped relationship. In the study reported here of self-reported affect during a remembered moment (N = 8,590), we tested the valence-arousal relationship in 33 societies with 25 different languages. The two most common hypotheses in the literature-independence and a symmetric V-shaped relationship-were not supported. With data of all samples pooled, arousal increased with positive but not negative valence. Valence accounted for between 5% (Finland) and 43% (China Beijing) of the variance in arousal. Although there is evidence for a structural relationship between the two, there is also a large amount of variability in this relation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

One of the major goals of drug use prevention programs is to delay the age of onset of substance use. What is called early initiation, usually occurring in adolescents under the age of 15, is a salient predictor of Substance Use Disorders later in adulthood. The causes of early initiation are complex and multifaceted and this has led to the identification of a rich set of risk and protective factors that influence age of onset. Nonetheless, there is little knowledge about the interdependence of these factors in their impact on early initiation. This paper addresses this question by applying Multiple Correspondence Analysis to data on family, community and social risk and protective factors from over 1200 adolescents. We find that community and to a lesser extent social factors are the most clearly associated to early initiation and we compare our results to those obtained from linear regression analyses of the same data that do not incorporate interdependence and find opposite results. We discuss the differences between linear regressions and MCA to evaluate the interplay of risk and protective factors and the implications of our findings for health policy and the design of prevention interventions aimed at delaying age of onset.

Non-suicidal self-injury among adolescents and its interaction with personal and contextual factors. Epidemiological studies in mental health indicate an increase in the prevalence of non-suicidal self-injury behaviors in adolescents. However, scarce studies in Latin America explore in depth this problematic behavior. Two studies were conducted using a mixed methodology in order to characterize this phenomenon and to identify associated clinical variables in a group of 1517 adolescents and 43 patients. Additionally, the mediator effect of sensation seeking in the relationship between family attachment and self-injury was assessed. Quantitative results indicate a relationship between self-injury and personal and contextual variables as impulsivity, sensation seeking and family dynamics. Qualitative analysis indicated that self-injury is presented in comorbidity with other complex problematics at the affective, social, academic and familiar levels of the participants. Results relevance is discussed for the clinical context.Resumen: Diferentes estudios epidemiológicos en salud mental indican un aumento en la prevalencia de comportamientos autolesivos en adolescentes. Sin embargo, escasos estudios en Latinoamérica exploran esta problemática en profundidad. Por medio de dos estudios con metodología mixta, el presente trabajo consistió en la caracterización de la autolesión y en la identificación de variables clínicas asociadas en una muestra de 1517 adolescentes y de 43 pacientes. Así mismo, se evaluó el efecto mediador de la búsqueda de sensaciones en la relación entre el apego familiar y la autolesión. Los resultados cuantitativos indican una relación entre la autolesión y factores personales y contextuales, tales como la impulsividad, la búsqueda de sensaciones y las dinámicas familiares. El análisis cualitativo indica que la autolesión se presenta en comorbilidad con otras problemáticas complejas en los niveles afectivo, social, académico y familiar de los pacientes. Se discute la relevancia de los resultados a nivel clínico.

Extant literature reports a frequent co-occurrence of substance consumption and antisocial behaviors. It is also postulated, therefore, that risk and protective factors are shared by the two behaviors. The purpose of this research is to test this notion by exploring whether family and peer-individual risk and protective factors are similarly associated with unique and co-occurring substance consumption and antisocial behaviors. A sample of 1,599 school students ranging between the ages of 11 and 19 completed a Spanish-language version of the Communities That Care Youth Survey (CTCYS). This instrument measures risk and protective factors and also captures adolescent drug consumption and antisocial behaviors. We find that risk and protective factors seem to operate in distinct ways for drug consumption and antisocial behaviors when they occur separately. Our findings indicate that the co-occurrence of both behaviors is related to risk factors, but it should not be inferred that the same factors will be present when only one behavior is observed.