Francisco J Ruiz

Fundación Universitaria Konrad Lorenz · Department of Psychology

Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) in the form of worry and rumination has been robustly identified as a transdiagnostic process implicated in the onset and maintenance of emotional disorders. Recent research suggests that both forms of RNT are particularly counterproductive experiential avoidance strategies because individuals usually engage in th...

Metaphor is a tool frequently used in psychotherapy such as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), a contextual behavioral model of psychological intervention rooted in an approach to human language and cognition known as relational frame theory (RFT). This experimental analogue study aimed to analyze the effect of two variables in the metaphor e...

Contextual therapies are at its peak nowadays, as plenty of workshops, expertise courses, conferences on this matter are given every year around the world. Acceptance and Committment Therapy (ACT) is a contextual therapy that gathers a vast empirical evidence, and its application is currently widespread to multiple contexts. Nevertheless, when lear...

Worry is the main characteristic of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), a psychological disorder whose prevalence is high worldwide in adults, adolescents, and children. The Penn State Worry Questionnaire for Children (PSWQ-C) is a widely researched instrument that measures GAD pathological worry. It comprises 14 items, 11 direct and three reverse-...

The Acceptance and Action Questionnaire – II (AAQ-II) has been heavily criticized based on factor-analytic studies that analyzed its discriminant validity. These studies have suggested that the AAQ-II may measure trait negative emotion/neuroticism, which has led some authors to suggest that the studies utilizing the AAQ-II might be reread, changing...

In hierarchical responding, classes of stimuli (e.g., granite or marble) are grouped into broader classes (e.g., rocks), and these broader classes can be further grouped into even broader classes (e.g., minerals). Relational Frame Theory (RFT) conceptualizes a hierarchical network as a derived relational response in which specific stimuli (is part...

Functional Contextualism has been popularized recently because it is the philosophy of science on the root of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. However, few texts have described FC in detail, leading to multiple misunderstandings. Accordingly, this article aims to present FC and respond to some of the misunderstandings typically seen on this topic...

Emotional disorders are highly prevalent in children worldwide. Accordingly, it is necessary to develop assessment tools for these disorders. The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) is a widely used screening instrument for children and adolescents that can also be used as an outcome measure. A short version of the RCADS (the RCADS-3...

Este artículo presenta dos estudios que evalúan la validez de constructo y la fiabilidad del “Cuestionario de esquemas desadaptativos tempranos de Young – versión breve” (YSQ-S3; Young, 2005). El primer estudio, con 1004 participantes, mostró que el YSQ-S3 tenía una excelente fiabilidad global ( de Cronbach= 0,97;  = 0,97); mientras que los facto...

This article presents two studies evaluating the construct validity and reliability of the “Young’s Early Maladaptive Schema Questionnaire – Short Version” (YSQ-S3; Young, 2005). The first study, with 1004 participants, showed that the YSQ-S3 had excellent overall reliability according (Cronbach’s  = .97;  = .97); while the factors showed accepta...

Despite the global nature of psychological issues, an overwhelming majority of research originates from a small segment of the world's population living in high-income countries (HICs). This disparity risks distorting our understanding of psychological phenomena by underrepresenting the cultural and contextual diversity of human experience. Researc...

The Work-Related Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (WAAQ) is a self-report instrument that measures psychological flexibility at work. Although this scale has been validated in some languages, its psychometric properties in Colombia are unknown, making it challenging to assess work-related psychological flexibility in this country. The present st...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00356.].

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes SC, Strosahl KD, Wilson KG, Acceptance and commitment therapy: An experiential approach to behavior change. Guilford Press, New York, 1999; Wilson KG, Luciano C, Terapia de aceptación y compromiso. Un tratamiento conductual orientado a los valores. Pirámide, Madrid, 2002), or contextual therapy, is the...

Background Identifying common factors that affect public adherence to COVID-19 containment measures can directly inform the development of official public health communication strategies. The present international longitudinal study aimed to examine whether prosociality, together with other theoretically derived motivating factors (self-efficacy, p...

Introduction We aim to understand the factors that drive citizens of different countries to adhere to recommended self-protective behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Survey data was obtained through the COVID-19 Impact project. We selected countries that presented a sufficiently complete time series and a statistically relevant sample...

Introduction: This study analysed the psychometric properties of the Reward Probability Index (RPI) in an online Colombian sample with 1129 participants. Method: To conduct a cross-validation study, the sample was randomly divided into two subsamples. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted with the first subsample yielding a two-factor struc...

Telehealth strategies have become essential for responding to the sanitary emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, developing online psychological interventions (OPIs) that can treat and prevent psychological difficulties is gaining more relevance. This article describes an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) based OPI focused...

La Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso (ACT) se está convirtiendo en una vía de intervención prometedora en los problemas psicológicos en la infancia. En el presente estudio se aborda la intervención desde ACT en un caso de un niño de 9 años (J) que muestra numerosas conductas disruptivas en el contexto familiar, especialmente en situaciones que inv...

Although cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is efficacious for treating panic disorder, a segment of the population is not treated due to the treatment length and the acceptability of interoceptive exposure. This study explored the efficacy of a brief protocol based on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) focused on repetitive negative thinking...

Repetitive negative thinking (RNT), in the form of worry and rumination, is a factor that can have a negative impact on the quality of life and symptomatology of patients with fibromyalgia (FM). The present study analyzes the efficacy of a brief Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) protocol focused on reducing RNT in four women diagnosed with FM...

Romantic relationship breakups often cause important behavioral and emotional consequences that can lead to experiencing complicated grief. However, little empirical research has tested psychological interventions for this frequent problem. This preliminary study explored the efficacy of a three-session protocol of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy...

The present study aimed to analyze the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems-64 (IIP-64) reliability and validity in an incidental online community sample of 701 participants living in Colombia. The internal consistency of the scales was estimated by two methods, Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s Omega, with acceptable to good results. Evidence of cons...

Generalized pliance is a pattern of rule-governed behavior characterized by having social approval as the main source of reinforcement. Recent research has found that generalized pliance is related to psychological inflexibility. As generalized pliance and psychological inflexibility are learned through social interaction, there may be differences...

Objective: To examine the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Valuing Questionnaire (VQ) in Colombian clinical and nonclinical samples. Method: The VQ was administered to a total sample of 1820 participants, which included undergraduates (N = 762), general population (N = 724), and a clinical sample (N = 334). The questionnaire...

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic fundamentally disrupted humans’ social life and behavior. Public health measures may have inadvertently impacted how people care for each other. This study investigated prosocial behavior, its association well-being, and predictors of prosocial behavior during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and soug...

We aim to understand the factors that drive citizens of different countries adhere to recommended self-protective behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey data obtained through the COVID Impact project was used. We combined previous evidence and change-point detection analysis to establish variations in self-protective behaviors across partic...

Background. The Valuing Questionnaire (VQ) is considered as one of the most psychometrically robust instruments to measure valued living according to the acceptance and commitment therapy model. It consists of 10 items that are responded to on a 7-point Likert-type scale and has two factors: Progression and Obstruction. The Spanish version of the V...

A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted during the first COVID-19 wave, to examine the impact of COVID-19 on mental health using an anonymous online survey, enrolling 9565 individuals in 78 countries. The current sub-study examined the impact of the pandemic and the associated lockdown measures on the mental health, and protective be...

This chapter reviews the conceptualization and empirical evidence of the midlevel process called cognitive defusion. Firstly, we present examples of cognitive fusion and cognitive defusion definitions offered in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) manuals, discuss their relationships with other ACT midlevel processes, and offer a relational fra...

Private events can have a dominant function in human behavior, especially with regard to the experience of self and selfing behavior. This article presents the building of selfing behavior throughout the early interactions of responding to others` behaviors and discusses the impact of learning to relate (i.e., learning human language). Special focu...

This article reviews the conceptualization and empirical evidence of the midlevel process called cognitive defusion. First, it presents examples of cognitive fusion and cognitive defusion definitions that are offered in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) manuals; discusses their relationships with other ACT midlevel processes; and offers a rel...

Delivering metaphors experientially has been emphasized in several psychotherapies, such as acceptance and commitment therapy. However, little research has analyzed the variables involved in the efficacy of metaphors. This experimental analog study aims to advance in this topic by analyzing the effect of two components involved in the experiential...

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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is a massive health crisis that has exerted enormous physical and psychological pressure. Mental healthcare for healthcare workers (HCWs) should receive serious consideration. This study served to determine the mental-health outcomes of 1,556 HCWs from 45 countries who participated in the COVID-19 IMPACT project, a...

La psicooncología pediátrica dispone de modelos de salud, estándares de atención e instrumentos específicos para guiar y mejorar la atención que reciben las familias de niños y adolescentes con cáncer. Este trabajo presenta los estándares de atención psicosocial que cuentan con evidencia científica, el Modelo de Salud Preventiva Psicosocial Pediátr...

The Maslach Burnout Inventory – General Survey (MBI-GS) is a widely used scale that measures burnout in the general professions. Debate persists regarding the factor structure of the MBI-GS, and there is scarce empirical evidence about the reliability, validity, and measurement invariance of the MBI-GS in Spanish-speaking samples. Moreover, the psy...

Antecedentes: los tratamientos psicológicos han mostrado su eficacia, efectividad y eficiencia para el abordaje de los trastornos mentales; no obstante, considerando el conocimiento científico generado en los últimos años, no se dispone de trabajos de actualización en español sobre cuáles son los tratamientos psicológicos con respaldo empírico. El...

Evidence-Based Psychological Treatments for Adults: A Selective Review. Background: Psychological treatments have shown their effi cacy, effectiveness, and effi ciency in dealing with mental disorders. However, considering the scientifi c knowledge generated in recent years, in the Spanish context, there are no updating studies about empirically su...

This study aimed to compare the mediation of psychological flexibility, prosociality and coping in the impacts of illness perceptions toward COVID-19 on mental health among seven regions. Convenience sampled online survey was conducted between April and June 2020 from 9130 citizens in 21 countries. Illness perceptions toward COVID-19, psychological...

Executive Summary Throughout its history the strategy and tactics of contextual behavioral science (CBS) research have had distinctive features as compared to traditional behavioral science approaches. Continued progress in CBS research can be facilitated by greater clarity about how its strategy and tactics can be brought to bear on current challe...

Previous research has shown that individuals suffering from depression and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) seem to have inhibitory control deficits compared with healthy controls. However, few studies have been conducted in Spanish-speaking countries. Thus, this study aims to analyze the performance on the Stroop Color and Word Test (SCWT) betwe...

This study provides a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials that analyzed the efficacy of psychological interventions for parents of children with cancer. The search was conducted in the databases PsycInfo, Medline, PsycArticles, and PsycTests. Sixteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Two independent researchers ext...

Introduction Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) rates vary between 1% and 20% depending on the type of diagnosis guide used, the test used in the assessment, psychosocial factors, and professional in charge of the assessment. Goal to describe and compare current clinical ADHD assessment processes in public health system in two coh...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic triggered vast governmental lockdowns. The impact of these lockdowns on mental health is inadequately understood. On the one hand such drastic changes in daily routines could be detrimental to mental health. On the other hand, it might not be experienced negatively, especially because the entire population was affec...

Rule-governed behaviour is a central concept to explain complex human behaviour from a functional-analytic standpoint. Recently, a self-report measure of a functional type of rule-following called generalised pliance has been developed – the Generalised Pliance Questionnaire (GPQ). The GPQ has two versions with 18 and 9 items, respectively. This st...

Background. The ATQ is a widely used instrument consisting of 30 items that assess the frequency of negative automatic thoughts. However, the extensive length of the ATQ could compromise its measurement efficiency in survey research. Consequently, an 8-item shortened version of the ATQ has been developed. This study aims to analyze the validity of...

Recent research has found that repetitive negative thinking (RNT) is an important transdiagnostic process both in adult and child psychopathology. This finding has led some authors to design content-independent measures of RNT that can be administered across disorders. One of these instruments is the Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire (PTQ) and i...

This parallel randomized controlled trial evaluated the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) focused on repetitive negative thinking (RNT) versus a waitlist control (WLC) in improving interpersonal skills in adolescents with problems of social and school adaptation. Forty-two adolescents (11-17 years) agreed to participate. Participant...

The concept of rule-governed behavior (RGB) has been used in the behavior-analytic literature as a way to analyze complex human behavior, including thinking and problem-solving. Relational frame theory suggests the existence of two main functional types of RGB termed pliance and tracking. In this paper, we describe the development of the Generalize...

Self-report measures of generalized patterns of rule-following are being developed in the last years including the Generalized Pliance Questionnaire (GPQ) and the Generalized Tracking Questionnaire (GTQ). Specifically, the GTQ is a 11-item self-report developed for adults that has shown excellent psychometric properties, a one-factor structure, and...

Conducting direct replication studies is crucial for the progress of science because they increase our confidence in the effect of the independent variables under the same or mostly the same experimental conditions. Pendrous et al. (2020) recently published an “extended direct replication” with negative results concerning the study by Sierra et al....

Background and objectives Few studies have investigated the role psychological inflexibility (PI) could have in the context of chronic renal failure. The primary objective of this study was to analyse the psychometric features, the reliability and the validity of the Spanish version of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II) adapted to...

Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) is a core feature of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and depression. Recently, some studies have shown promising results with brief protocols of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) focused on RNT in the treatment of emotional disorders in adults. The current study analyzes the effect of an individual, 3-ses...

This parallel randomized controlled trial aimed to evaluate the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) focused on disrupting repetitive negative thinking (RNT) versus a waitlist control (WLC) in the treatment of depression and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Forty-eight participants with a main diagnosis of depression and/or GAD were...

Clinical psychology trainees often experience emotional difficulties during their clinical training. This study aims to examine the predictive ability of repetitive negative thinking (RNT) for emotional symptoms of clinical psychology trainees. A longitudinal study with 236 clinical psychology trainees was conducted. Before beginning clinical pract...

Antecedentes y objetivo: Estudios previos han demostrado que la inflexibilidad psicológica (IP) está fuertemente correlacionada con una amplia gama de síntomas psicológicos (ansiedad, depresión y quejas somáticas) y que tiene una fuerte correlación negativa con medidas de salud general y de calidad de vida. Sin embargo, apenas existen estudios que...

The current study analyzes the efficacy of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) focused on repetitive negative thinking (RNT) for child depression. A randomized, nonconcurrent, multiple-baseline design was conducted with 9 children, aged between 8 and 13 years, who showed a main diagnosis of child depression. Measures of psychological inflexibil...

Cross-sectional research has shown that clinical psychology trainees usually face a wide range of stressors related to the clinical practice and tend to present higher distress than the rest of the staff or students. However, to our knowledge, no longitudinal study has been conducted analyzing this fact. Specifically, this study analyzes the evolut...

Conceptual accounts of pliance, a particular class of rule-governed behavior, propose that its generalization precipitates insensitivity to direct contingencies. Accordingly, a context of mindfulness has been theorized to influence the way in which rules function and facilitate effective contact with such contingencies. Despite the profound implica...

Young adults suffering from generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) show high levels of worry about different domains, with couple relationships being the most frequent one. Excessive worry in this domain might lead to couple dysfunction, which is associated with lower outcomes of cognitive behavioral therapy. The current study analyzes the effect of an...

The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) is a widely used, 5-item, 7-point Likert-type scale that measures life satisfaction. The current study aims to explore the validity of the SWLS in Colombia and its factorial equivalence with Spanish samples. The SWLS was administered to a total of 1,587 Colombian participants, including a sample of undergradu...

Empirical research on functional classes of rule-governed behavior has been scarce, which might be due to the absence of valid behavioral or self-report measures. We describe the development and initial examination of the Generalized Pliance Questionnaire (GPQ) through three studies with a total of 2127 participants. In Study 1, a pool of 77 items...

The Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire – Youth (AFQ-Y) is a widely used measure of psychological inflexibility in children and adolescents. It is a 17-item questionnaire which also has an 8-item version (AFQ-Y-8). The AFQ-Y has been adapted into some languages, including Spanish. Overall, the AFQ-Y seems to be a sound measure although there is some...

This par­al­lel ran­dom­ized con­trolled trial eval­u­ated the ef­fect of Ac­cep­tance and Com­mit­ment Train­ing (ACT) fo­cused on dis­rupt­ing repet­i­tive neg­a­tive think­ing (RNT) ver­sus a wait­list con­trol (WLC) in clin­i­cal psy­chol­ogy trainees. Ninety-four un­der­grad­u­ate, clin­i­cal psy­chol­ogy trainees of a Colom­bian uni­ver­sity...

Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) focused on clinical practice might play a relevant role in the emotional difficulties clinical psychology trainees may experience during their training. However, the empirical evidence in this regard is very limited. To begin to address this topic, the current study aimed to adapt and preliminarily test the psycho...

Background: Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) has been identified as an important transdiagnostic process. However, little empirical research has been conducted into how triggers for RNT are organized. This study tested the hypothesis that these triggers are usually hierarchically related. Method: One-hundred undergraduates underwent several ev...

Empirical research on pliance, a functional class of rule-governed behavior, has been scarce in children. This study aims to develop a children version of the Generalized Pliance Questionnaire (GPQ), a self-report developed for adults that has shown excellent psychometric properties, a one-factor structure, and criterion validity. In so doing, we a...

Online psychological interventions for the treatment of depression are increasing as an alternative to traditional face-to-face psychotherapy. Adaptations of cognitive behavioral therapy for the treatment of depression have been tested, with meta-analyses showing weighted effect sizes from d = 0.40 to 0.56. However, less evidence exists about the e...

Experiential avoidance, the tendency to rigidly escape or avoid private psychological experiences, represents one of the most prominent transdiagnostic psychological processes with a known role in a wide variety of psychological disorders and practical contexts. Experiential avoidance is argued to be based on a fundamental verbal/cognitive process:...

The rationale behind most car-following (CF) models is the possibility to appraise and formalize how drivers naturally follow each other. Characterizing and parametrizing Normative Driving Behavior (NDB) became major goals, especially during the last 25 years. Most CF models assumed driver propensity for constant, safe distance is axiomatic. This p...