Appraisal

The ways in which children appraise and cope with school bullying are likely to influence the long-term outcomes experienced. To examine this possibility, 219 Spanish undergraduate students (73 male, 146 female) aged between 18 and 40, completed an adapted version of the Retrospective Bullying Questionnaire (RBQ; Schäfer et al., 2004) and a distress scale (Rivers, 1999). Results indicated that neither coping strategies reported by victims of bullying nor the match between control appraisal and coping strategy influenced levels of distress experienced as adults. Control, threat and challenge appraisals did, however, influence long-term distress. Explanations for these effects are discussed, and include the possibility that appraisals may directly influence levels of distress and the quality of emotions experienced by victims during the actual bullying episode. Active strategies were perceived by students to be effective in dealing with bullying, whereas those centered on avoiding the...

Efforts to bridge emotion theory with neurobiology can be facilitated by dynamic systems (DS) modeling. DS principles stipulate higher-order wholes emerging from lower-order constituents through bidirectional causal processes – offering a common language for psychological and neurobiological models. After identifying some limitations of mainstream emotion theory, I apply DS principles to emotion–cognition relations. I then present a psychological model based on this reconceptualization, identifying trigger, self-amplification, and self-stabilization phases of emotion-appraisal states, leading to consolidating traits. The article goes on to describe neural structures and functions involved in appraisal and emotion, as well as DS mechanisms of integration by which they interact. These mechanisms include nested feedback interactions, global effects of neuromodulation, vertical integration, action-monitoring, and synaptic plasticity, and they are modeled in terms of both functional inte...

"From chronological to axiological meaning in Spanish adjectives: any past time was worse".
This paper aims to show how the Spanish adjectives antediluviano, decimonónico, medieval and prehistórico, whose original meaning as relational adjectives was linked to the designation of certain chronological spaces, have acquired an axiological meaning, namely negative and disparaging. This evaluative nature makes them particularly suited instruments for argumentative discourse.

Resumen:
El presente artículo tiene como objetivo mostrar cómo los adjetivos españoles antediluviano, decimonónico, medieval y prehistórico, cuyo significado originario como adjetivos relacionales estaba vinculado a la designación de determinados espacios cronológicos, han adquirido un significado calificativo axiológico, en concreto de carácter negativo y descalificador de lo designado. Este carácter valorativo los convierte en instrumentos léxicos particularmente aptos para el discurso argumentativo.

The present paper is a thorough study on the recent developments of excise tax in Peru.
It begins by showing the most recent regulatory treatment on this tax, then focusing on the current system of it, analyzing the most relevant aspects of the excise tax, aiming to be a contribution to the future improvement of this tax.

The purpose of this study was to understand the nature of human resource management (HRM) practices and study the concept of organizational culture in the midscale and upscale hotel organizations. Thus, the main theme of this study was an executive-level position in the HRM department/division of the hotel which included detailed examination on (1) the five different types of HRM practices such as HR planning, staffing, training and development, appraisal, and compensation; and (2) the three elements of organizational culture such as employee relations, creativity/risk-taking, and efficiency/pride emphasis. The next part determines the extent of association between the HRM practices and the organization's culture orientation. The number of hotel organisations included in the study was 50 hotels selected midscale and upscale hotels in the Klang Valley. The findings from this research indicate that overall HRM practices were found to be mixed with some inclination towards meeting current requirements whilst some were more geared towards future requirements. The organisation's culture orientation was relatively open and in support of employee-management relationships, some organizational support for employees' creativity and risk-taking activities, and employees' pride with their organizations

This paper explores how two testifiers at the Human Rights Violation hearings of South
Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1996 used selected markers of
evaluation (shifts in tense, the inclusion of direct speech and code-switching) to express
evaluative meanings and position themselves, the police and their audiences in relation
to their narratives. Both testifiers are mothers of young activists who were pursued,
detained and tortured by police in the 1980s. The paper argues that it is through the
subtle though significant linguistic choices the women make that their perspective is
construed and their 'narrative truth' realized.

Studies have utilized latent class analysis (LCA) and latent profile analysis (LPA) to examine posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom profiles in a range of populations. Further study is needed to explore symptom profiles among women exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV). The current study examined latent symptom profiles in a sample of IPV-exposed women, and explored trauma-related cognitive appraisals associated with these PTSD symptom presentations. An LPA was conducted using cross-sectional data from a non-treatment seeking community sample of women recruited following a police-reported incident of IPV by a male perpetrator (N=229). Multinomial regression analyses determined associations between latent profile membership and trauma-related appraisals. The LPA identified five PTSD symptom profiles: Low Symptom (46% of the sample); Low Symptom with High Hypervigilance (17%); Intermediate Symptom (16%); Intermediate Symptom with High Hypervigilance (11%); and High Sympto...

At what stage in the emotion process do people apprehend the relational meaning of their encounters with the practical or social environment? For many appraisal theorists, meaning (usually or always) comes first, shaping the activation of functional response modes by top-down influence. For transactional theorists, meaning emerges bottom-up in parallel with the real-time consolidation of the response syndrome. For attribution theorists, meaning is applied to emotional episodes after the fact, and is not an intrinsic part of any emotion-generative mechanisms. For communicative theorists, emotions are flexible strategies for conveying meanings to others. This paper reviews arguments and evidence for and against these four approaches and attempts to integrate their insights by sketching out a view of emotions as functional modes of engagement with the practical and social environment (relation alignment), whose operation is transformed by the imposition of societal prescriptions and descriptions. From this perspective, relational meaning is often implicated in the causes, content, and consequences of emotion but its roles in these phases of the transaction do not always coincide. Further, emotions should not be modelled simply as determinate responses to separately defined meanings or as communicative acts driven by internal goals, but also as situated adjustments to unfolding events and as active ways of transforming or producing meaning in collaboration with other people.

Development of a self-report measure of stress specific to HIV/AIDS is needed to advance our understanding of the role of stress in adaptation to HIV/AIDS; hence, the aim of this study was the development of the HIV/AIDS Stress Scale. A total of 132 homosexual/bisexual men with HIV/AIDS were interviewed and completed the HIV/AIDS Stress Scale and measures of coping strategies, appraisal, social support and adjustment (global distress, depression, social adjustment, number of HIV symptoms, and subjective health status) at three time points. Thirty-nine primary caregivers were interviewed and completed measures of stress and adjustment. Exploratory factor analyses of the HIV/AIDS Stress Scale items revealed three factors: Social, Instrumental and Emotional/Existential Stress. Factors had adequate internal reliabilities and were stable over 12 months. Construct validation data are consistent with recent stress/coping research that links higher levels of stress with more HIV symptoms, reliance on emotion-focused coping, lower social support, poorer levels of adjustment and higher levels of caregiver stress. Results extend this research by revealing new differential relations between various stress dimensions and stress/coping variables. Convergent validation data suggest that the HIV/AIDS Stress Scale shares conceptual similarity with threat appraisal, and differs from controllability and challenge appraisals. The HIV/AIDS Stress Scale shows potential for the elucidation of the role of stress in coping and adaptation to HIV/AIDS and disease progression in both research and clinical applications.