Hostage negotiation: Law enforcement's most effective nonlethal weapon

Hostage negotiation is perhaps the most explicitly psychological law enforcement discipline. The hostage negotiator attempts to form a trusting relationship with the hostage-taker, to foster a sense of mutual interest and concern in the surrounded group, and to act as a credible broker between the hostage-taker and the authorities. The technique has been applied to hostage situations involving trapped criminals, subjects with mental disorders, prison inmates, and terrorists. Although family members, friends, and helping professionals can provide useful information to help the negotiators, only law enforcement officers who are not in a command role should negotiate directly with the hostage-taker. Careful selection and training, including multiple role playing exercises, can prepare negotiators for the considerable stresses they must face. These include deadlines, victim precipitated deaths, and the potential involvement of the negotiator in a tactical resolution of the hostage incident. Recently, the principles of hostage negotiation have been applied in a growing range of crisis situations.     

A theoretical model of effective electrical conductivity and piezoresistivity of carbon nanotube composites

A theoretical model is developed to predict the electrical conductivity of polymer composites containing carbon nanotubes. It incorporates the effect of two conductivity mechanisms, electron hopping between adjacent nanotubes at the nanoscale and the transmission of electrons through conductive networks formed by nanotubes at the microscale. Based on the model, analytical expressions of both electrical conductivity and piezoresisitivity under stretching are established. The expressions are simple in form, without resorting to heavy computation, and able to give accurate estimations for both electrical conductivity and piezoresistivity.     

Psychoanalysis and negotiation

Somewhere between the image of psychoanalysis as suggestion and psychoanalysis as unearthing is that of analysis as negotiation. This is a picture of a mutual construction of reality by analyst and patient. Such an interaction allows for reciprocal input of the participants and a possible change in both. This paper sketches the role of negotiation throughout the entire process of treatment--from the initial rules, to the theory of the analyst, to the emergence of the transference, to the goal of the cure. The technique of psychoanalysis is said to lie in the process of negotiation.     

A study of the relationship between personality traits and theoretical orientation preferences

This study explored the relationship between personality and theoretical orientation preferences in two separate samples of psychotherapy practitioners and students. A total of 493 participants (274 practitioners and 219 students) completed a web‐based survey. Preference for theoretical orientation was assessed using a measure adapted from the Theoretical Orientation Profile Scale‐Revised, while personality was assessed with the HEXACO Personality Inventory. After controlling for the effects of gender, profession, and degree type, personality was found to predict preference for the humanistic/existential, cognitive‐behavioural, psychodynamic, and feminist theoretical orientations across both samples. Personality also predicted preference for the multicultural, family systems, and neuropsychological orientations, although these findings were applicable to only one sample. Implications for future research, psychotherapy training, and practice are discussed.     

Content analysis in negotiation research: A review and guide

Content analysis, a technique in which inferences are derived from the communication of interacting parties, is not utilized enough in mainstream negotiation research. The purpose of the present article is to outline the benefits and limitations inherent in the content analysis technique, to provide a comprehensive review of content analysis systems that have been used in the past, and to evaluate the existing systems in an effort to guide readers in the decision process. This article aids the potential consumer—any person considering the use of content analysis in negotiation research—in making informed choices regarding this technique. Choice among existing systems should be based upon one’s research question and upon accepted standards of quality. A system that is relatively comprehensive, well grounded in theory, and demonstrates acceptable levels of reliability is advocated. Specific recommendations regarding quality systems are provided.     

Relationship between emotions and muscle tension in oro-alimentary behavior

The relationship between muscular tension in the right and left masseter and orbicularis oris and different forms of hostility measured through the Gottschalk test was examined for 24 female subjects. For the muscles of the right half of the body a direct relation was noted with overt outward hostility, while on the left half of the body only the tension of the masseter was related directly to ambivalent hostility. Our hypothesis about a link between modulation of aggressive behaviors and muscles involved in functions such as chewing and biting was confirmed.     

Metalinguistic negotiation and logical pluralism

Logical pluralism is the view that there is more than one right logic. A particular version of the view, what is sometimes called domain-specific logical pluralism, has it that the right logic and connectives depend somehow on the domain of use, or context of use, or the linguistic framework. This type of view has a problem with cross-framework communication, though: it seems that all such communication turns into merely verbal disputes. If two people approach the same domain with different logics as their guide, then they may be using different connectives, and hence talking past each other. In this situation, if we think we are having a conversation about “\(\lnot A\)”, but are using different “\(\lnot \)”s, then we are not really talking about the same thing. The communication problem prevents legitimate disagreements about logic, which is a bad result. In this paper I articulate a possible solution to this problem, without giving up pluralism, which requires adopting a notion of metalinguistic negotiation, and allows people to communicate and disagree across domains/contexts/frameworks.

     

Interdependence in negotiation: effects of exit options and social motive on distributive and integrative negotiation

This study extends past research on the impact of alternatives in dyadic negotiation by (a) providing negotiators with the mere possibility to negotiate with an outside party and (b) examining the moderating role of the negotiators' social motive. Business students engaged in face‐to‐face negotiations, which were audio‐taped and transcribed. None, one, or both dyad members were provided with an exit option—the possibility to leave the current negotiation and start new negotiations with someone else. Dyads were also given instructions to maximize own outcomes (egoistic motive) or to consider both own and the other's outcomes (prosocial motive). Results showed that, as expected, dyads with a one‐sided exit option engaged in more distributive and less integrative behavior, and obtained lower joint outcomes than dyads having either two‐sided or no exit options. However, this effect occurred only under an egoistic rather than a prosocial motive. No differences were found for negotiations with two‐sided exit options compared to negotiations without exit options, suggesting one's own exit option is counterbalanced by the other's escape possibility. Our results indicate that negotiators who wish to maximize personal as well as joint outcomes should try to combine a power advantage in terms of exit options with a shared prosocial orientation. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Physiologic and self-report comparisons between tension headache sufferers and nonheadache controls

Tension headache sufferers and nonheadache controls were compared with respect to (1) frontal EMG during both baseline and presentation of an imagined stressor, (2) trait anxiety, (3) locus of control expectancies for health related behaviors, and (4) exposure to stressful life events. Tension headache sufferers displayed higher resting muscle tension levels than did nonheadache controls. However, both groups responded similarly to the imagined stress stimulus and displayed significant muscle tension elevations of similar magnitude. While tension headache sufferers reported higher levels of trait anxiety, no differences were found between the two groups for locus of control expectancies and exposure to stressful life events. The diagnostic and treatment implications of these findings are discussed.     

Matching and negotiation processes in quasi-markets

The negotiation literature has emphasized negotiation between two or more predetermined parties. Many negotiations, however, occur in market contexts in which parties must decide with whom to negotiate as well as conduct specific dyadic negotiations. The results of a laboratory study of the MBA job market show that negotiators deviate from rationality both in the way in which they “match” and in their dyadic negotiations. These results are discussed in terms of the implications both for individuals who participate in such markets and for institutions that create mechanisms that affect the matching/ negotiation process.     

Religion and medicine: A theoretical overview

Recent scholarly studies in history, sociology, anthropology, religion, and psychosomatic medicine, coupled with clinical experience in the care of patients, call for a reassessment of the interrelationships between religion and medicine. Six major areas of interaction between these forms of human experience are identified and outlined. Investigations into these interlinkages not only offer challenging new opportunities for discovery but also hold promise for the development of new, more effective forms of medical care and healing. This new understanding of the interconnections between medicine and religion has many implications both for health care practitioners and for professionals with specialized training in religious studies.Has studied and taught in the areas of religion, American and Western history, and the history of medicine and medical ethics. He is the author of a number of publications on history, ethics, and the interrelationships between religion and medicine.     

Embarrassability and self-construal: A theoretical integration

This study investigates embarrassability and its association to three individual difference variables:

1. (1) social anxiety,

2. (2) a person's interdependent self-construal (i.e. interconnectedness), and

3. (3) independent self-construal (i.e. bounded, separateness).

Previous theories of embarrassment are integrated in relating these individual differences to the process of embarrassment and individual level embarrassability. It is suggested that embarrassment can be traced to three factors:

1. (1) the strength of one's idealized role-identity (as bounded and separate) going into the interaction,

2. (2) the sensitivity to others' evaluations as the interaction unfolds, and

3. (3) the degree to which one's identity is entwined with and dependent on others.

Three-hundred and seventy-one students, representing diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, composed the sample. Even after accounting for the effects of social anxiety, the strength of a person's independent self-construal is negatively associated with embarrassability. Beyond those effects, the strength of the interdependent self-construal is positively related to embarrassability. These findings support the hypothesized model and contribute to the criticism that the previous western conceptualization of embarrassability is ethnocentric and restricts the construct. Implications and directions for future research are provided.     

A review of theoretical and empirical advancements

In this article, we review both theoretical and empirical advancements in retirement adjustment research. After reviewing and integrating current theories about retirement adjustment, we propose a resource-based dynamic perspective to apply to the understanding of retirement adjustment. We then review empirical findings that are associated with the key research questions in this literature: (a) What is the general impact of retirement on the individual? and (b) What are the factors that influence retirement adjustment quality? We also highlight important future research directions that may be fruitful for psychologists to pursue in this area.     

A last defence: the negotiation of blame within suicide notes

This paper presents a discursive analysis of 172 suicide notes left by 120 suicide victims. Instead of searching for the underlying psychological reasons for suicide in the content of notes, we argue that such notes should be viewed as acts of communication which serve to manage the blame accorded to both author and recipients of the suicide note. Consequently notes may provide evidence of socially shared beliefs as to when suicide is more or less acceptable. The analysis largely confirms this approach. It is found that matters relating to blame are referred to more frequently than any other issue (87% of notes). The precise arguments which are used to justify the actions of both self and others are then described in detail and some evidence is provided that the nature of these arguments may vary as a function of the social position of the author and also the identity of the recipient. The implications of these findings, and for a general use of a discursive approach to suicide, are then discussed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A reason for theoretical terms

The presence of nonobservational vocabulary is shown to be necessary for wide application of a conservative principle of theory revision.Support for this research was provided by the Office of Naval Research under contract No. N00014-87-K-0401. We thank Daniel Andler and Clark Glymour for helpful discussion.     

A theoretical expectancy table calculator

A program for calculating theoretical expectancy tables is described. These tables are useful for communicating the meaning of correlation coefficients, since they display the relationship in a simple way. The program allows users to go beyond empirical expectancy tables, which are routinely calculated, by allowing the table to reflect corrections for effects such as unreliability and restriction of range.