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AbstractPrevious research on leader effects has focused exclusively on the impact of voters' evaluations of leaders on vote choice, disregarding possible effects on the prior step of deciding whether or not to turn out to vote. In line with the personalisation of politics thesis, leaders have a higher impact among dealigned voters. Previous studies have demonstrated that leader effects are stronger among voters who voice their dealignment – namely party switchers. However, the potential impact of leaders among those who exited (i.e., who have abstained) is still unstudied. Could leaders have a mobilisation effect and therefore trigger turnout decisions? What characteristics of party leaders are more relevant in this regard? This article is the first comparative study to examine how the evaluation of party leaders' traits influences voter turnout in general elections. The work incorporates data from election studies across seven countries with different social contexts (Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy and Hungary). Characteristics of leaders were grouped into two dimensions – competence and warmth – in accordance with the stereotype content model and relevant studies on leaders' traits evaluation. Multiple binary logistic regression models were performed to analyse the predictive power of competence and warmth on turnout, controlling for sociodemographic, political ideology variables and voters' past political behaviour. Results reinforce the personalisation of politics theory, showing the utmost relevance of warmth personality traits of leaders in voter turnout decisions. Competence personality traits were found to be relevant only in some situations. Interaction effects were also demonstrated between warmth evaluations and identifying with a right‐wing party as well as past political behaviour with both warmth and competence.

The Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) is a widely used instrument to assess information processing speed, attention, visual scanning, and tracking. Considering that repeated evaluations are a common need in neuropsychological assessment routines, we explored test–retest reliability and practice effects of two alternate SDMT forms with a short inter-assessment interval. A total of 123 university students completed the written SDMT version in two different time points separated by a 150-min interval. Half of the participants accomplished the same form in both occasions, while the other half filled different forms. Overall, reasonable test–retest reliabilities were found (r = .70), and the subjects that completed the same form revealed significant practice effects (p < .001, dz = 1.61), which were almost non-existent in those filling different forms. These forms were found to be moderately reliable and to elicit a similar performance across participants, suggesting their utility in repeated cognitive assessments when brief inter-assessment intervals are required. ; This work was supported by European Union FEDER funds through Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade (COMPETE) for ADI Project "DoIT-Desenvolvimento e Operacionalizacao da Investigacao de Translacao" ("MyHealth-PPS4"; project no ...

Abstract: The 2019 televised debate between the leaders of the two main Portuguese parties for the general elections in Portugal drew approximately 2.7 million viewers. Debates constitute a centrepiece of campaigns, allowing candidates to showcase their proposals. The importance of debates in election campaigns reflects their possible influence in changing voters' perspectives. As the standards for judging candidates increasingly rely on non-political characteristics such as personality traits, we examine the effects of debates on voters' judgments of the warmth and competence of candidates and their voting intentions. We employed a within subject's pretest/postest design to monitor participants before and after the debate between the leaders of the two main parties in Portugal, António Costa (Socialist Party, PS) and Rui Rio (Social-Democrat Party, PSD) for the Portuguese 2019 legislative elections. A comprehensive statistical pipeline was implemented to isolate the effects of the debate. Evidence suggesting that the debate influenced the perceived warmth and competence of both candidates was found. This study contributes to the literature on debates and supports the claim that they may shift voters' perceptions and attitudes.

Patrícia R Pinto,1,2 Teresa McIntyre,3 Vera Araújo-Soares,4 Patrício Costa,1,2,5 Ramón Ferrero,6 Armando Almeida1,2 1Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), School of Medicine, University of Minho, Braga, 2ICVS/3B's – PT Government Associate Laboratory, Braga/Guimarães, Portugal; 3Department of Psychology, Houston Baptist University, Houston, TX, USA; 4Institute of Health and Society, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK; 5Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal; 6Orthopedics Unit, Alto Ave Hospital Center, Guimarães, Portugal Background: Acute pain is an expected result after surgery. Nevertheless, when not appropriately controlled, acute pain has a very negative impact on individual clinical outcomes, impairing healing and recovery, and has clear consequences on health care system costs. Augmenting knowledge on predictors and potentially modifiable determinants of acute postsurgical pain can facilitate early identification of and intervention in patients at risk. However, only a few studies have examined and compared acute pain after total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The aim of this study was to compare THA and TKA in acute postsurgical pain intensity and its predictors.Methods: A consecutive sample of 124 patients with osteoarthritis (64 undergoing THA and 60 TKA) was assessed 24 hours before (T1) and 48 hours after (T2) surgery. Demographic, clinical, and psychological factors were assessed at T1, and acute postsurgical pain experience was examined at T2. Additionally, the same hierarchical regression analysis was performed separately for each arthroplasty type.Results: TKA patients reported higher levels of acute postsurgical pain compared with THA (t=8.490, p=0.004, d=0.527, 95% confidence interval, 0.196–0.878). In the final THA predictive model, presurgical pain was the only variable approaching significant results (t[57]=1.746, β=0.254, p=0.086). In the final TKA predictive model, optimism was the only predictor of pain (t[51]=–2.518, β=–0.339, p=0.015), with emotional representation (t[51]=1.895, β=0.254, p=0.064) presenting a trend toward significance.Conclusion: The current study is the first examining THA and TKA differences on acute postsurgical pain intensity and its predictors using a multivariate approach. Results from this study could prove useful for the design of distinct interventions targeting acute postsurgical pain management depending on whether the site of arthroplasty is the hip or the knee. Finally, the current results also support the argument that these two surgeries, at least with regard to acute pain, should be approached separately. Keywords: acute post-surgical pain, total knee arthroplasty, total hip arthroplasty, psychological factors, multivariate analyses, presurgical psychological intervention

Tau-mediated neurodegeneration is a central event in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other tauopathies. Consistent with suggestions that lifetime stress may be a clinically-relevant precipitant of AD pathology, we previously showed that stress triggers tau hyperphosphorylation and accumulation; however, little is known about the etiopathogenic interaction of chronic stress with other AD risk factors, such as sex and aging. This study focused on how these various factors converge on the cellular mechanisms underlying tau aggregation in the hippocampus of chronically stressed male and female (middle-aged and old) mice expressing the most commonly found disease-associated Tau mutation in humans, P301L-Tau. We report that environmental stress triggers memory impairments in female, but not male, P301L-Tau transgenic mice. Furthermore, stress elevates levels of caspase-3-truncated tau and insoluble tau aggregates exclusively in the female hippocampus while it also alters the expression of the molecular chaperones Hsp90, Hsp70, and Hsp105, thus favoring accumulation of tau aggregates. Our findings provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms through which clinically-relevant precipitating factors contribute to the pathophysiology of AD. Our data point to the exquisite sensitivity of the female hippocampus to stress-triggered tau pathology. ; This study was supported by the Japanese Soci- ety for the Promotion of Science (IS), the Portuguese Foundation for Science & Technology (IS, AJR, NS), the Max Planck Society (OFXA), and the European Union FP7 Project SwitchBox (OFXA and NS). AT is supported by Research Funding for Longevity Sci- ences (23–39) from National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, the Strategic Research Program for Brain Science ("Integrated Research on Neuropsychiatric Disorders") and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas ("Brain Environment") from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of ...