Spanish Journal of Psychology

This work provides a conceptual introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis in psychological research. We discuss the concepts of direct effect, indirect effect, total effect, conditional effect, conditional direct effect, conditional indirect effect, and the index of moderated mediation index, while providing our perspective on certain analysis and interpretation confusions that sometimes arise in practice in this journal and elsewhere, such as reliance on the causal steps approach and the Sobel test in mediation analysis, misinterpreting the regression coefficients in a model that includes a product of variables, and subgroups mediation analysis rather than conditional process analysis when exploring whether an indirect effect depends on a moderator. We also illustrate how to conduct various analyses that are the focus of this paper with the freely-available PROCESS procedure available for SPSS, SAS, and R, using data from an experimental investigation on the effectiveness of personal or testimonial narrative messages in improving intergroup attitudes.

This study establishes the relationship between a manager’s Machiavellian personality and unethical behavior. It also tests the cross-level interaction effects of collectivism and power distance on the relationship between a Machiavellian personality and unethical behavior. The multi-level and multi-source data are collected from 22 public sector organizations from which 202 responses from managers about their personalities, power distance, and collectivism, and 626 subordinates’ ratings of the managers’ unethical behavior were received and used. The results show that Machiavellian personality has a positive relationship with unethical behavior. The cross-level interaction effects also show that cultural dimensions such as power distance, and collectivism—significantly and positively moderate the relationship between Machiavellian personality and unethical behavior. Based on the study’s findings, implications for theory and practice are offered.

The aim of the present study was to validate the Spanish Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire (PBQ) against external criteria of bonding disorder, as well as to establish its test-retest reliability. One hundred fifty-six postpartum women consecutively recruited from a perinatal mental health outpatient unit completed the PBQ at 4–6 weeks postpartum. Four weeks later, all mothers completed again the PBQ and were interviewed using the Birmingham Interview for Maternal Mental Health to establish the presence of a bonding disorder. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis revealed an area under the curve (AUC) value for the PBQ total score of 0.93, 95% CI [0.88, 0.98], with the optimal cut-off of 13 for detecting bonding disorders (sensitivity: 92%, specificity: 87%). Optimal cut-off scores for each scale were also obtained. The test-retest reliability coefficients were moderate to good. Our data confirm the validity of PBQ for detecting bonding disorders in Spanish population.

Based on the Job Demands-Resources theory, this meta‐analysis investigates the role of resources in predicting feedback-seeking behavior (FSB) over time. We also examine the relationship between FSB and its outcomes from a systematic review perspective. The eligibility criteria were: (a) to measure feedback-seeking behavior, (b) to have a longitudinal design, and (c) to have employees as target groups. Thirteen studies met these criteria (Ntotal= 1,527). We combined the meta-analysis procedures and structural equation modeling (metaSEM) and used the systematic review. The methodological quality of the available longitudinal studies is assessed. Our findings indicated that job resources predict future feedback-seeking behavior and between feedback-seeking behavior and personal resources is significant relationship. More research is needed to clarify the reciprocal relationships between personal resources and feedback-seeking behavior and the influences of feedback-seeking behavior on performance.

Repeated measurement designs have been growing in popularity in the fields of Organizational Behavior and Work and Organizational Psychology. This brings up questions regarding the appropriateness of time-lag choices and validity of justification used to make time-lag decisions in the current literature. We start by explaining how time-lag choices are typically made and explain issues associated with these approaches. Next, we provide some insights into how an optimal time-lag decision should be made and the importance of time-sensitive theory building in helping guide these decisions. Finally, we end with some brief suggestions as to how authors can move forward by urging them to explicitly address temporal dynamics in their research, and by advocating for descriptive studies with short time-lags, which are needed to uncover how the changes happen over time.