Carlota Urruela Cortés

• López-Aguilar, Pablo; Urruela, Carlota; Batista, Edgar; Machin, Juvenal & Solanas, Agusti (2025). Phishing vulnerability and personality traits: Insights from a systematic review. Computers in Human Behavior Reports. 20. doi: 10.1016/j.chbr.2025.100784. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Phishing attacks have gained prominence and effectiveness over the years. Although many efforts are devoted to combat them, generic anti-phishing awareness and training campaigns have shown limited success. In this context, considering individuals’ personality traits in relation to phishing behaviour could significantly enhance cybersecurity defence strategies. In this article, we concentrate on personality traits and their effects on vulnerability to phishing attacks. We implement a rigorous systematic review following the methodology proposed by vom Brocke et al. (2009) along with the PRISMA statement. We searched five major databases (i.e., Web of Science, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, and PubMed), with an all-years’ time span from 1900 to January 2025. From the 1919 articles yielded in the initial search, 26 satisfied all criteria. Results reveal that extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism generally show a positive association with phishing vulnerability, whereas conscientiousness emerges as a protective factor. The review also highlights significant gaps in the current methodologies used to measure phishing vulnerability, noting a lack of standardised measurement tools to perform phishing experiments. Finally, this study underscores the need to develop secondary prevention strategies targeting at-risk groups to combat the increasingly sophisticated phishing threats. To enhance consistency in future research, the Appendix includes guidelines for measuring phishing vulnerability under experimental conditions.

• Urruela, Carlota; Herrero, Óscar & Colom, Roberto (2025). Which Psychological Factors Distinguish Impulsive and Premeditated Homicide? Evidence Obtained from an Integrative Framework. Journal of Forensic Psychology Research and Practice. ISSN 2473-2850. p. 1–29. doi: 10.1080/24732850.2025.2553659. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This study examines cognitive and non-cognitive factors in impulsive and premeditated homicide among 105 Spanish offenders. Participants were assessed with measures of intelligence, self-control, and personality traits. Results indicated that intelligence had almost no relationship with personality or self-control. Self-control moderated the effects of hostility and neuroticism on impulsive behavior: hostile individuals with high self-control committed less impulsive homicides, while those with low self-control committed more impulsive ones. High neuroticism combined with low self-control was linked to greater impulsiveness in homicide. These findings underscore the relevance of considering cognitive and non-cognitive factors when studying homicide and designing targeted interventions.

• Urruela, Carlota; Pérez-Reigosa, Gabriela; Herrero, Oscar; Escorial, Sergio & Colom, Roberto (2024). Remarkable Differential Verbal and Non-Verbal/Performance Cognitive Profiles in Homicide and Sexual Offenders with Adult Victims. Anuario de Psicología Jurídica. ISSN 1133-0740. 35(1), p. 63–69. doi: 10.5093/apj2024a8. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Introduction: On average prison populations show lower cognitive scores than the general population, but it is also acknowledged that inmates are highly heterogenous and that verbal and non-verbal ability scores might uncover differential patterns. Method: We consider 140 participants divided into five groups: controls, non-sexual and non-homicidal inmates (other inmates), sex offenders with adult victims (AVS) and child victims (CVS), and homicide offenders. All participants completed two WAIS-III subtests to obtain reliable estimates of their verbal and non-verbal abilities. The quotient ‘matrices/similarities’ (UIQ) was also computed. Results: Homicide and AVS offenders showed lower general scores than controls; AVS and homicide offenders showed lower non-verbal scores than controls; homicide offenders showed lower verbal scores than the other groups; and homicide, AVS offenders and “other inmates” were the most dissimilar groups regarding UIQ. Conclusions: The findings support the relevance of distinguishing among criminal offenders to avoid unwarranted generalizations when cognitive abilities are considered.

• Urruela, Carlota; Greco, Ana M.; Díaz-Faez, Diego A.; Zych, Izabela; Pereda, Noemí & Eisner, Manuel [Show all 8 contributors for this article] (2023). Validation of the Violent Ideations Scale (VIS) in Spain. International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology. ISSN 0306-624X. 67(15), p. 1474–1492. doi: 10.1177/0306624X221148126. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Research has shown that violent ideations (VIs) may play a key role in aggression and violence. However, there is no tool to measure this construct adapted to the Spanish language so far. The current study aims to translate and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Violent Ideations Scale (VIS) in European Spanish. This study counts with a convenience sample of 752 native Spaniards or Spanish speakers residing in Spain, between 18- and 75-years old, 53% identified as female and 47% identified as male. The dimensionality, gender measurement invariance, concurrent validity and reliability of scores were assessed. Initial evidence of external validity was collected. Results confirmed the unidimensionality of the instrument. Measurement invariance held across females and males and reliabilities were high. VIS-ES scores correlated with aggressive behavior during the previous month. The VIS-ES seems suitable for use in non-clinical Spanish speaking samples.

• Urruela, Carlota; Booth, Tom; Eisner, Manuel; Ribeaud, Denis & Murray, Aja L. (2023). Validation of an Extended Violent Ideations Scale to Measure Both Non-Sexual and Sexual Violent Ideations (The VIS-X). European Journal of Psychological Assessment. ISSN 1015-5759. 39(3). doi: 10.1027/1015-5759/a000698. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  A previous study developed and validated a multi-item instrument for the assessment of violent ideations, the “Violent Ideations Scale” (VIS). However, the final 12-item scale contained no items relating to sexual violence and was thus lacking an important dimension of violence. The current study explores an expansion of the original VIS to include ideations of sexual violence and investigates the psychometric properties of this new version: The Violent Ideations Scale-Extended (VIS-X). The VIS-X was completed by participants in the latest wave of the z-proso study (N = 1,177; 595 females, 580 males aged 19–22 years). Exploratory factor analysis was conducted in a calibration sample and confirmatory factor analysis in a validation sample to establish a two subscale structure as optimal. Cronbach’s α and Composite Reliability suggested good internal consistency. Nomological analysis supported the convergent validity of the scores.

• López-Ossorio, Juan José; González-Álvarez, José Luis; Vicente, Jose Manuel Muñoz; Urruela, Carlota & Andrés-Pueyo, Antonio (2019). Validation and Calibration of the Spanish Police Intimate Partner Violence Risk Assessment System (VioGén). Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology. ISSN 0882-0783. 34, p. 439–449. doi: 10.1007/s11896-019-09322-9. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This study describes the rationale, development, and validation of the intimate partner violence (IPV) police risk assessment forms of the VioGén System of the Spanish Ministry of Interior (VPR4.0 and VPER4.0), which promote greater predictive effectiveness and an improvement in the IPV law enforcement prevention. A validation study of the mentioned protocols is presented, including inter-observer reliability, estimated by the equivalence or inter-judge reliability method, while the convergent validity of these protocols was calculated with the RVD-BCN protocol. The sample consisted of 6613 new cases of IPV included in the VioGén System over a period of 2 months and which were longitudinally followed up for 6 months. The discrimination indexes are not only the summarized odds ratio (OR), area under the ROC curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity, but also the calibration indexes positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV). The results show the suitability of using procedures which, in a coordinated manner, incorporate two risk assessment instruments, one for a first screening assessment and a second one to re-assess IPV danger situations on a regular basis. The values obtained are within the margins reported by different meta-analyses regarding this type of instruments, which supports their use for professional practice.

• González-Álvarez, José Luis; López-Ossorio, Juan José; Urruela, Carlota & Díaz, Marina Rodríguez (2018). Integral Monitoring System in Cases of Gender Violence-VioGén System. Behavior & Law Journa. ISSN 2444-4170. 4(1), p. 29–40. doi: 10.47442/blj.v4.i1.56. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper discusses the normative origins, elements and operative foundations of the Integral Monitoring System in Cases ofGender Violence (VioGén System), a national government software application in Spain, implemented since 2007 to coordinate the actions of Spanish public professionals involved in the monitoring, assistance and protection of abused women and their minor children. Thousands of specialist users from the different integrated institutions access daily this application, which already manages more than 510,000 cases. The law enforcement part of the VioGén System is, for the time being, the most developed one, being the "police assessment of the risk of new violence” one of the main functionalities of the aforementioned system, for which two actuarial questionnaires have been developed (VPR and VPER). These questionnaires count with almost three million assessments; which consequently help in carrying out forensic, penitentiary and welfare assessments. Although the VioGén System currently only deals with cases of gender violence, in the future it may incorporate data on domestic violence, and technically it may be extended to the monitoring of other vulnerable groups.

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