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Objective: Most studies on conduct disorder (CD) have focused on male adolescents, disregarding analysis of this psychopathology in women. The purpose of this study was to identify differences in empathy and theory of mind (ToM) in a group of adolescent women with CD and a control group. Method: Thirty-six adolescent women were selected from an initial sample of 239 adolescents (CD group = 18, control group = 18). Empathy and ToM were evaluated through objective instruments. Mean comparisons and multivariate analysis were performed to ascertain differences between cases and controls and to propose a prediction model based on clinical status. Results: Significant differences in empathic abilities and ToM were found between the groups. The model that differentiated both groups was composed of eye-reading ability, perspective taking, and personal distress. Conclusion: These findings are consistent with previous studies. Capacity to take the other’s perspective and the recognition of emotions in the face are protective factors against CD in women.

This study describes a series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses that were conducted with the 44-item Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children- 4th version (SAQ-CIV) to identify a reduced set of items that might be used to construct a new abbreviated instrument for measuring social anxiety in children and adolescents. The fourth version of the Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children (SAQ-CIV) was administered to 12,801 non-clinical participants (ages 9 to 15 years) from 12 Latin American countries and Spain. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis supported a 6-factor structure of social anxiety in children, replicating a similar structure to that of adults (Caballo et al. in Behavioral Psychology/Psicologia Conductual, 18(1), 5–34, 2010; Caballo et al. in Behavior Therapy, 43(2), 313–328, 2012): 1) Interactions with the opposite sex, 2) Criticism and embarrassment, 3) Speaking in public/Talking to teachers, 4) Assertive expression of annoyance and disgust, 5) Performing in public, and 6) Interactions with strangers. Each of the factors contains 4 items, yielding an abbreviated 24-item instrument, the Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children (SAQ-C). The present results suggest this is a reliable, valid, and culturally sensitive instrument to assess social anxiety in youth.

Radial Basis Function Neural Networks (RBFNN) are a type of artificial neuronal network (ANN) that estimate the output of the function taking as a reference the distance to a point called center. This paper presents a RBFNN for the classification of adolescents’ offenders of the law according to their dangerousness level, that have been admitted to the Specialized Attention Center (SAC), “El Redentor” in Bogotá, Colombia in the year 2017. This classification may be utilized by psychosocial teams of the SAC in order to customize and make more effective the therapeutic pedagogical treatment. The ANN developed is particularly good for identifying adolescents with a high, low and null dangerousness level.

ResumenEl objetivo de la presente investigación fue determinar la relación entre la formación académica, la empatía, los valores y comportamientos socialmente responsables de estudiantes de primero, quinto y décimo semestres de varios programas académicos de la Fundación Universitaria Luis Amigó. Se empleó un enfoque empírico-analítico, de diseño no experimental, tipo descriptivo y correlacional. Los instrumentos con los que se recolectó la información fueron el Cuestionario de Auto-atribución de Comportamientos Socialmente Responsables el de Valores de Schwartz, el Índice de Reactividad Interpersonal de Empatía y el Test de “metida de patas”.AbstractThe aim of this investigation was to determine the relationship between academic, empathy, values and socially responsible behavior of students of 1st, 5th and 10th level of the Fundación Universitaria Luis Amigó academic programs. This study was quantitative approach non experimental, descriptive and correlational. Instruments for collecting information used in this research were the self-attribution questionnaire Socially Responsible Behavior Values Questionnaire of Schwartz, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index of empathy and Faux Pass test.

Se ha propuesto que las características de la teoría de la mente y la empatía son predictores importantes de trastornos de conducta en la niñez y la adolescencia. Los objetivos del presente estudio fueron comparar un grupo de adolescentes, con características de trastorno disocial y un grupo de adolescentes controles, en pruebas que evalúan teoría de la mente y empatía, con el fin de establecer factores predictivos de riesgo o de protección para el desarrollo de conductas disociales en los adolescentes. Los resultados mostraron diferencias estadísticamente significativas entre ambos grupos, en las pruebas de teoría de la mente y de empatía. Se establecieron como factores protectores la dimensión de la empatía denominada toma de perspectiva y las habilidades del adolescente para interpretar los estados mentales y emocionales de acuerdo al Test de la lectura de la mirada