Instituto Universitário de Ciências Psicológicas, Sociais e da Vida
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Boat noise impacts early life stages in the Lusitanian toadfish: A field experiment
Get PDFMarine traffic is themost common and chronic source of ocean noise pollution. Despite the evidence of detrimental
effects of noise exposure on fish, knowledge about the effects on the critical early life stages - embryos and
larvae - is still scarce. Here, we take a natural habitat-based approach to examine potential impacts of boat
noise exposure in early life stages in a wild fish population of the Lusitanian toadfish (Halobatrachus didactylus).
In-situ experiments were carried out in the Tagus estuary, an estuary with significant commercial and recreational
boat traffic. Nestswith eggswere exposed to either ambient (control) or boat noise (treatment), for 1 fortnight.
Eggs were photographed before being assigned to each treatment, and after exposure, to count number of
eggs and/or larvae to assess survival, and sampled to study development and oxidative stress and energy
metabolism-related biomarkers. Data concerns 4 sampling periods (fortnights) from 2 years. Results indicate
that offspring survival did not differ between treatments, but boat noise induced a detrimental effect on embryos
and larvae stress response, and on larvae development. Embryos showed reduced levels of electron transport system
(ETS), an energy metabolism-related biomarker, while larvae showed higher overall stress responses, with
increased levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and DNA damage (oxidative stress related responses), ETS, and
reduced growth. With this study,we provided the first evidence of detrimental effects of boat noise exposure on
fish development in the field and on stress biomarker responses. If these critical early stages are not able to compensate
and/or acclimate to the noise stress later in the ontogeny, then anthropogenic noise has the potential to
severely affect this and likely other marine fishes, with further consequences for populations resilience and
dynamics.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCTinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
track2KBA: An R package for identifying important sites for biodiversity from tracking data
No full textAbstract
1. Identifying important sites for biodiversity is vital for conservation and management. However, there is a lack of accessible, easily applied tools that enable practitioners to delineate important sites for highly mobile species using established
criteria.
2. We introduce the R package ‘track2KBA’, a tool to identify important sites at the
population level using tracking data from individual animals based on three key
steps: (a) identifying individual core areas, (b) assessing population-level representativeness of the sample and (c) quantifying spatial overlap among individuals
and scaling up to the population.
3. We describe package functionality and exemplify its application using tracking
data from three taxa in contrasting environments: a seal, a marine turtle and a
migratory land bird.
4. This tool facilitates the delineation of sites of ecological relevance for diverse taxa and provides output useful for assessing their importance to a
population or species, as in the Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) Standard. As
such, ‘track2KBA’ can contribute directly to conservation planning at global
and regional levels.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCT; FEDERinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Testing the affective events theory: The mediating role of affect and the moderating role of mindfulness
Get PDFThis study aims to expand the knowledge on the affective events theory by:(1) testing the mediating role of affectin the relationship between micro-dailyevents and well-being, (2) and analyzing the moderating role of mindfulness in thismediated relationship. To achieve these goals, we collected data with 393 workingadults. The results showed that: (1) affect mediates the relationship betweenmicro-daily events and well-being; (2) mindfulness moderates the mediated rela-tionship between micro-daily events and well-being via affect, that is, higher levelsof mindfulness are positively related to well-being in particular when the levels ofpositive affect are higher. These resultsshow the importance of providing condi-tions for the occurrence of daily uplifts at work as these seem to lead to increasesin employees' well-being. Promoting mindfulness at work also seems relevant forworkers' mental health and well-being, forexample, through complementary train-ing or daily practices.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Hair cortisol concentration, weight loss maintenance and body weight variability: A prospective study based on data from the european nohow trial
Get PDFSeveral cross-sectional studies have shown hair cortisol concentration to be associated with adiposity, but the relationship between hair cortisol concentration and longitudinal changes in measures of adiposity are largely unknown. We included 786 adults from the NoHoW trial, who had achieved a successful weight loss of ≥5% and had a body mass index of ≥25 kg/m2 prior to losing weight. Hair cortisol concentration (pg/mg hair) was measured at baseline and after 12 months. Body weight and body fat percentage were measured at baseline, 6-month, 12-month and 18-month visits. Participants weighed themselves at home ≥2 weekly using a Wi-Fi scale for the 18-month study duration, from which body weight variability was estimated using linear and non-linear approaches. Regression models were conducted to examine log hair cortisol concentration and change in log hair cortisol concentration as predictors of changes in body weight, change in body fat percentage and body weight variability. After adjustment for lifestyle and demographic factors, no associations between baseline log hair cortisol concentration and outcome measures were observed. Similar results were seen when analysing the association between 12-month concurrent development in log hair cortisol concentration and outcomes. However, an initial 12-month increase in log hair cortisol concentration was associated with a higher subsequent body weight variability between month 12 and 18, based on deviations from a nonlinear trend (β: 0.02% per unit increase in log hair cortisol concentration [95% CI: 0.00, 0.04]; P =0.016). Our data suggest that an association between hair cortisol concentration and subsequent change in body weight or body fat percentage is absent or marginal, but that an increase in hair cortisol concentration during a 12-month weight loss maintenance effort may predict a slightly higher subsequent 6-months body weight variability. Clinical Trial Registration: ISRCTN registry, identifier ISRCTN88405328. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Horizontal asymmetries derived from script direction : consequences for attention and action
Get PDFTese apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Doutor em Psicologia na área de especialização de Psicologia Social apresentada no ISPA - Instituto Universitário, no ano de 2021.A direção de leitura e escrita estabelecem uma trajetória preferencial de exploração do espaço que é reforçada por diversas regularidades culturais consistentes com essa direccionalidade. A correlação espaço-movimento cria um esquema para a ação que enviesa a representação da agência humana, estendendo-se à representação de outros conceitos abstratos que não possuem bases sensoriomotoras. A dimensão horizontal é recrutada para melhor compreender estes conceitos, sendo ancorados de acordo com a direção de escrita e leitura da nossa língua. A assimetria espacial que esta direccionalidade induz constitui um contributo crucial para a área do embodiment, tendo sido demonstrado que afeta processos sociais e cognitivos. Contudo, os processos específicos que estas assimetrias ativam permanecem pouco explorados. Em sete estudos, esta dissertação investiga de que forma as assimetrias espaciais afetam inferências sociais e a performance visuo-motora para com estímulos ancorados na dimensão horizontal.
O primeiro estudo indica que inferências sociais relacionadas com agência são preferencialmente atribuídas a faces de perfil orientadas para a direita (versus esquerda). Em duas experiências, o segundo estudo mostra que faces orientadas para a direita servem como pistas para a orientação de atenção. Faces orientadas para a direita, que traduzem a direção utilizada para representar a agência humana, facilitam a atenção para e deteção de alvos no campo visual direito, comparativamente a faces orientadas para a esquerda no campo visual esquerdo. No terceiro estudo, as faces foram substituídas por palavras temporais auditivas e visuais, que se sabe serem ancoradas horizontalmente. A assimetria espacial foi testada em duas experiências em comunidades com direções de leitura e escrita opostas (Português e Árabe). Observou-se uma ancoragem contrária do conceito abstrato ‘tempo’ entre as duas amostras (Português: passado-esquerda/futuro-direita; Árabe: passado-direita/futuro-esquerda). Adicionalmente, uma performance assimétrica reversa entre as duas comunidades linguísticas confirma que o mapeamento do tempo é enviesado pelos hábitos ortográficos e pela representação cultural da agência humana. Isto é, palavras temporais que coincidem com a direção induzida por ambos os sistemas de escrita (i.e., palavras relacionadas com futuro), dão origem a vantagem à direita na amostra Portuguesa, e vantagem à esquerda na amostra Árabe. O quarto estudo estendeu estes resultados à categoria da política, tipicamente representada através de coordenadas de esquerda e de direita. Respostas manuais e atencionais foram mais rápidas para alvos localizados à direita após terem sido apresentadas termos políticos de direita (versus alvos à esquerda após termos políticos de esquerda), que correspondiam à direção em que habitualmente se representa movimento. O quinto e último estudo demonstrou que a apresentação de palavras temporais simultaneamente com um tom auditivo não-espacial impede os efeitos de emergirem. Estas pistas bimodais revelaram as condições limitativas dos efeitos da assimetria espacial.
Em conclusão, esta dissertação demonstra que existe uma propriedade genérica de movimento que deriva da direção ortográfica e que é transversal à representação de estímulos distintos, em várias tarefas e modalidades sensoriais. Estes resultados oferecem uma perspetiva mais abrangente sobre o impacto prevalente que uma característica da língua aparentemente irrelevante tem em processos cognitivos fundamentais de perceção, atenção, e julgamento.The directional activities of reading and writing have been shown to ground a preferential trajectory when scanning space. This horizontal directional formation is further reinforced by other cultural regularities that overlap with it. This space-movement correlation creates a left-right (or vice-versa) schema for action that biases the representation of human agency and extends to the representation of other abstract concepts lacking experiential sensorimotor bases. Consequently, the horizontal dimension is recruited to reason about abstract concepts that are mapped congruently with one’s dominant reading and writing or script direction. The spatial asymmetry that this combined directionality induces is a core finding in the embodiment area and has been shown to affect important social and cognitive processes. However, the specific processes activated by these asymmetries remain unclear. A series of seven experiments are outlined to investigate how spatial asymmetries affect social inferences and visuomotor performance to stimuli anchored in the horizontal dimension.
The first study indicated that a range of agency-related social inferences are preferentially assigned to face profiles oriented rightward (versus leftward). Across two experiments, the second study showed that right oriented faces serve as attention-orienting primes. Rightward faces, which are in line with the direction used to represent human agency, facilitate attention to and detection of targets on the right hemifield, relative to leftward faces and targets on the left hemifield. In the third study, face primes were replaced by visual and auditory time words known to ground horizontally in space. Spatial asymmetries were tested in two experiments with communities holding opposite writing scripts (Portuguese and Arabic). We observed the mapping of time to be reversed between the two samples (Portuguese: past-left/future-right; Arabic: past-right/future-left). Further, a mirrored asymmetric performance between the two linguistic communities confirmed that the mapping of time is biased by orthographic habits and the cultural representation of human agency. That is, time words that coincide with the direction induced by both writing systems (i.e., future-related) gave rise to right-side advantage in the Portuguese sample and left-side advantage in the Arabic sample. The fourth study extended these results to the category of politics, commonly represented through coordinates of left and right. Manual and gaze responses were faster to targets embedded on the right following conservatism-related words (versus the left following socialism-related words) that embody the habitualized rightward movement direction. The fifth and final study demonstrated that presenting time words synchronously with an auditory nonspatial tone impaired cueing effects. These bimodal cues revealed the boundary conditions of the spatial agency bias.
Overall, this dissertation underscores that a generic property of movement that is derived from orthographic direction underlies the representation of very distinct stimuli across tasks and sensory modalities. These findings offer a broader perspective on the pervasive impact a seemingly irrelevant feature of language has on fundamental cognitive processes of perception, attention, and judgment
Estereótipos, emoções e comportamentos em contexto intergrupal em Portugal
No full textAbstract: Stereotype content has been much studied since the classic study by Katz and Braly (1933). The results obtained in these studies have been fundamental to building more complex experiments in order to explore the formation, purpose and maintenance of stereotypes. In Portugal, to our knowledge, the existing studies are quite scarce, and in some cases non-existent, particularly related to some social groups of interest. Furthermore, continuous social changes may bring variation in the meaning and
importance of each attribute. The goal of this study is to explore and pre-test the stereotype content of 12 social groups in Portugal. Ninety-eight participants recruited online via social media responded to 35 stereotypic traits and their valence, 21 emotions and 12 behavioural tendencies related to these social groups. The results allow not only the selection of, for each group, the stereotypic traits, emotions, and behavioural tendencies that are significantly different from the midpoint of the scale, but also the identification of traits, emotions and behavioural tendencies that best seem to differentiate
the different groups.Resumo: O conteúdo dos estereótipos tem sido muito estudado desde o clássico estudo de Katz e Braly (1933). Os resultados obtidos nestes estudos têm sido fundamentais na construção de estudos mais complexos no sentido de explorar a formação, propósito e manutenção dos estereótipos. Do nosso conhecimento, em Portugal, os estudos neste campo são poucos ou até inexistentes, particularmente relacionados com alguns grupos sociais. Além disso, as mudanças sociais contínuas podem trazer variação no significado
e importância de cada atributo. O objetivo deste estudo é explorar e pré-testar o conteúdo dos estereótipos de 12 grupos sociais em Portugal. Noventa e oito participantes recrutados online, através das redes sociais, avaliaram 35 traços estereotípicos e a sua valência, 21 emoções e 12 tendências comportamentais relacionadas com estes grupos sociais. Os resultados permitem não apenas a seleção, para cada grupo, dos traços estereotípicos, das emoções e das tendências de comportamento que são
significativamente diferentes do ponto médio da escala, mas também a identificação de traços, emoções e tendências de comportamento que melhor parecem diferenciar os diferentes grupos.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Different placement practices for different families? Children’s adjustment in LGH adoptive families.
Get PDFThe purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of children placed with lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adopters, and to examine children's problem behaviors and positive psychosocial adjustment across the three family types.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCTinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
A Portuguese Adaptation of the Teruel Orthorexia Scale and a Test of Its Utility with Brazilian Young Adults
Get PDFThe aims for this study were to perform a Portuguese language cross-cultural adaptation of the Teruel Orthorexia Scale (TOS) and to evaluate the scale's psychometric properties, including verifying the frequency of behaviors characteristic of orthorexia nervosa and healthy orthorexia, among a group of Brazilian gym users. First, we adapted the Spanish version of the TOS to the Brazilian Portuguese language following international protocols to guarantee idiomatic, semantic, conceptual, and cultural equivalence. Then participants completed both the new Portuguese version of the TOS and a socioeconomic questionnaire. Among our sample of 226 young Brazilian adults (63.7% men; M age = 28.8, SD = 5.1 years), we assessed the bi-factorial model of the TOS through factorial, convergent, and discriminant validity, reliability, and factorial invariance. We calculated the mean scores of the TOS factors and the frequency of behaviors of both orthorexia nervosa and healthy orthorexia. The new Portuguese version was well understood by participants, and the TOS bi-factorial model presented adequate psychometric properties and showed invariance in independent subsamples and in men and women. The mean scores were different between sexes only for orthorexia nervosa, with women obtaining higher values. The frequency of orthorexia nervosa behaviors was 5.3% and of healthy orthorexia was 41.2%. Based on these findings, the Brazilian Portuguese version of the TOS can be a useful tool for investigating orthorexia-like behaviors in future research.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Crenças de advogados/as face à criminalidade feminina
Get PDFDissertação de Mestrado
apresentada no ISPA - Instituto Universitário para
obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de
Psicologia Forense.As atitudes dos/as advogados/as desempenham um papel fulcral na defesa das mulheres
ofensoras. O presente estudo tem como principal objetivo analisar as atitudes dos/as
advogados/as face à criminalidade feminina, averiguando também se existem diferenças entre
o sexo, a idade e os anos de experiência profissional dos/as participantes. Para tal, foi
administrado o Questionário Atitudes sobre o Crime Feminino – ACF, de Caridade e Nunes
(2013), o qual tem como objetivo analisar as atitudes sobre o crime praticado no feminino numa
amostra constituída por 92 participantes, com idades compreendidas entre os 23 e os 71 anos,
sendo que 35 participantes eram do sexo masculino e 57 do sexo feminino. Os resultados
demonstraram que as atitudes dos/as advogados/as foram tendencialmente discordantes com
ideias relacionadas com o estado mental no momento do crime, com a vitimação da ofensora,
tipologia, gravidade e violência dos crimes, reincidência criminal, consumo de substâncias e o
papel da mulher ofensora na justiça, no entanto, os/as participantes demonstraram deter atitudes
neutras em questões relacionadas com a atuação das forças de segurança e crimes sexuais.
Foram encontradas diferenças nas atitudes dos/as advogados/as face à criminalidade feminina
relativamente à variável sociodemográfica sexo, assim como correlações estatisticamente
significativas entre a idade e os anos de experiência profissional. Estes resultados evidenciaram
a importância do papel de um/a advogado/a ao longo do processo judicial, nomeadamente nas
crenças que detêm enquanto defensores/as, assim como a insuficiência de conhecimento
científico sobre um tema tão importante e emergente como a criminalidade feminina.The attitudes of lawyers play a central role in the defense of women offenders. The main
purpose of this study is to analyze lawyers' attitudes towards female criminality, and to find out
if there are differences between gender, age, and years of professional experience of the
participants. To this end, the Attitudes about Female Crime Questionnaire - ACF by Caridade
and Nunes (2013) was administered, which aims to analyze attitudes about crime committed by
females in a sample consisting of 92 participants, aged between 23 and 71 years, with 35
participants being male and 57 female. The results showed that the attitudes of the lawyers
tended to disagree with ideas related to the mental state at the time of the crime, the
victimization of the offender, the type, severity, and violence of the crimes, criminal recidivism,
substance abuse, and the role of the female offender in justice; however, the participants showed
neutral attitudes on issues related to the actions of the security forces and sexual crimes.
Differences in lawyers' attitudes towards female criminality were found with regard to the
sociodemographic variable gender, as well as statistically significant correlations between age
and years of professional experience. These results highlighted the importance of the role of a
lawyer throughout the judicial process, particularly in the beliefs they hold as defenders, as well
as the insufficiency of scientific knowledge on such an important and emerging topic as female
criminality