Raquel Pérez-López

• PhD
• Lecturer at Complutense University of Madrid

The Tagus River deterioration due to water pollution and the Tagus-Segura water transfer, as well as the complaints of the affected populations motivate the present research. This exploratory study aims to characterize the population of three riverside municipalities (Aranjuez, Talavera de la Reina and Toledo) in relation to variables related to pe...

The main objective of this research is to design an instrument to evaluate public attitudes towards several protection measures against possible urban flooding, concretely when Duero River passes through the city of Zamora (Spain). The study took place in three differentiated phases. In a first one, using the focus group technique, three groups of...

Handwriting is a complex activity that involves continuous interaction between lower-level handwriting and motor skills and higher-order cognitive processes. It is important to allocate mental resources to these high-order processes since these processes place a great demand on cognitive capacity. This is possible when lower-level skills such as tr...

In this research we designed an instrument to evaluate public attitudes towards flood risk management measures applicable to urban flood prone areas. Using the focus group qualitative research technique, a total of 24 stakeholders organized in three groups discussed about these measures. Content analysis allowed us to identify main opinions and bel...

The COVID-19 pandemic is leading to an unprecedented crisis worldwide. With schools closed, the frequency with which Spanish parents engage in home literacy activities with their children between the ages of 2 and 8 and the sociodemographic variables that influence this collaboration are unknown. The present research aimed to understand interaction...

El objetivo de este trabajo consiste en presentar el potencial que el análisis de la percepción psicosocial tiene para el diseño de estrategias de gestión y comunicación del riesgo de inundaciones. Para ello, en primer lugar, se realiza una exposición teórica de los principales procesos psicológicos implicados en la evaluación del riesgo de inundac...

Background: Most studies focused on measuring environmental attitudes consider a one-dimension measure of pro/anti-environmentalism, such as NEP scale. Nevertheless, more recent research has shown that it seems more adequate to use a multidimensional approach when assessing complex relations among people and the natural environment, particularly o...

Studies have shed light on the idea that people who have experiences in natural settings might be more aware of the environment. Learning gardens, as outdoor contexts, might contribute to the development of students’ affective relations toward nature, pro-environmental attitudes, and protective actions; neverthless, these aspects begging to be expl...

The presence of learning gardens in Spain is growing, and the current scenario is highly diverse in relation to issues such as participatory models or purposes, among others. In the context of the 1st National Meeting on organic learning gardens, we convened eight expert practitioners in a focus group. Their discourse was analyzed through content a...

Climate change requires the designing of strategies that mitigate the damage to people’s daily life. One of the most notable consequences of climate change in the Iberian Peninsula is flooding, the frequency and social and economic impact of which have increased in recent decades. As a result, a change of paradigm in flood risk management has been...

Environmental managers are increasingly aware of the importance of involving different stakeholders to develop flood risk management policies and to design effective communication strategies. In order to involve the stakeholders in these processes is required first a broad understanding of: (1) how they perceive flood risks; (2) what kind of intere...

This work aims to analyze the relationship between temporal perspective and environmental risk perception, as well as to evaluate the role that temporal perspective plays in flood-risk perception and the intentions to adopt protective behaviors. Two studies were carried out with university students (N = 253) and general population of a municipality...

The chapter begins by making a conceptual reflection of the relation between, terms such as wellbeing and the quality of life, based on a contextualization of the residential satisfaction. Thereafter, a revision is carried out on the pioneer research in residential satisfaction. Concretely, the chapter shows how these studies find out evaluation cr...

People leave ‘footprints’ in the environment in which they live and these become cues that reflect the occupants' identity. The aim of the present study was to determine the inferences about sociodemographic and personality traits made from the observation of primary spaces, and to identify the cues that facilitate such inferences. In Study 1, part...

The main objective of this research was to test the impact of a risk communication strategy (RCS) on the level of risk perception (RP) and preparedness in 201 participants living in an area prone to flash floods. A longitudinal research was designed and participants were interviewed twice (before and after the implementation of the RCS) within a on...

A suitable level of social awareness of Civil Protection Plans (CPP) is critical to minimize disasters and damages due to flash floods and, therefore, improving social vulnerability related to the impact of floods on households. This study describes and presents the results of the implementation of a Risk Communication Strategy (RCS) in a village l...

The deterioration of the environment and the seriousness of current environmental problems have led to changes in individuals’ attitudes towards the environment, and have also modified their consumer behaviour, thus favouring the development of more responsible conducts in consumers in different part of the world. In spite of this, few previous emp...

Warmth and competence are universal dimensions of social perception that articulate the perception of other individuals and social groups. However, there are no scales that have systematically been used in psychosocial research. The purpose of this study is to construct two scales, one on warmth and another on competence, which could be used at the...

People leave their marks on the environment through the personalization of their spaces. In this regard, personalized space will allow people to make inferences regarding the occupant's personal and social characteristics. This research attempts to study the issue of impression formation based on the cues that people leave behind in their primary s...

This research aims to investigate whether individuals use categories of objects to classify cues inside a bedroom and to find relations between those clusters and occupants’ personality traits. Three studies were conducted. A list of the most significant belongings inside residents’ bedrooms was obtained from the pilot study. The second study (N =...

This study aims to discover whether observers with the same cultural background as the inhabitant of a bedroom perceive common characteristics among the inhabitants. The study was carried out with 107 females who were asked to assess the inhabitants of eight bedrooms. Several slides of each bedroom were shown to participants and they had to choose...

Los espacios físicos en los que las personas desarrollan parte de la vida diaria se adaptan a los gustos y preferencias y los convierten en reflejo de su propia identidad. La personalización del espacio es considerado un mecanismo facilitador de estas adaptaciones y del reflejo de la identidad personal en los lugares. Este trabajo dirige la atenció...