儿童侵犯性性别差异的社会认知技能视角

影响侵犯性性别差异的因素众多,本研究认为的社会认知技能的性别差异与侵犯性性别差异有密切关系,认知技能是风险因素和行为之间的调节者。女性相比于男性侵犯性行为少与女性神经机制的发展缺陷概率小,生理成熟早,最终发展形成较男性更好的社会认知技能有密切关系。     

Psychopathological and Behavior Impairments in Williams-Beuren Syndrome: The Influence of Gender,Chronological Age,and Cognition

The aim of this study was to explore psychopathological and behavior impairments in Williams-Beuren syndrome (WBS) by focusing on individual differences rather than group tendencies. Parent/Guardian ratings on the Child Behavior Checklist were analyzed in order to examine the influence of gender, chronological age, and cognitive abilities on psychopathological impairment within WBS. In line with predictions, and consistent with cognitive heterogeneity in WBS, psychopathological and behavioral abnormalities were variable, with gender and specific cognitive abilities making significant and independent contributions to this variance. For gender, females were significantly more likely than males with WBS to display difficulties with externalizing problems. For specific cognitive abilities, those cognitive functions characteristic of the classic WBS cognitive profile (a strength in verbal skills and a weakness in spatial skills) related to significantly greater internalizing difficulties. Future studies should explore underlying genetic and neurological differences in individuals with WBS in order to help explain the variability in psychopathological and cognitive functions.     

Evolutionary Neuroandrogenic Theory and Universal Gender Differences in Cognition and Behavior

A theory is proposed that predicts the existence of numerous gender differences in cognition and behavior. The basis for these expectations is the single assumption that females have evolved tendencies to form long term sociosexual alliances with a competent resource provisioner. This assumption is teamed with evidence that males are actually a variant on the female sex with brains masculinized in ways that help them respond to female mating preferences. To orchestrate male responses to female biases in mates, the theory asserts that androgens (male sex hormones) have two main effects on human brain functioning. One is a diminished sensitivity to most environmental stimuli. The other involves shifting cognitive functioning away from the left hemisphere toward a more even and task-specialized hemispheric distribution. Many of the cognitive and behavioral differences between males and females predicted by the theory are described.     

Gender Differences in Criminal Intent: Examining the Mediating Influence of Anticipated Shaming

Research finds males to have a higher likelihood of offending than females. Dominant explanations of the gender/crime relationship tend to invoke strain, learning, and control theories, but we propose that part of the relationship is attributable to differences in anticipated shaming. We test this argument using data collected from a sample of 439 young adults. Results of both Tobit regressions and path analyses support our hypothesis, suggesting that anticipated shaming may actually mediate more of the gender/crime relationship than do variables derived from alternative perspectives. Implications for understanding and controlling crime are discussed.     

The gender paradigm in domestic violence research and theory: Part 1—The conflict of theory and data

Feminist theory of intimate violence is critically reviewed in the light of data from numerous incidence studies reporting levels of violence by female perpetrators higher than those reported for males, particularly in younger age samples. A critical analysis of the methodology of these studies is made with particular reference to the Conflict Tactics Scale developed and utilised by Straus and his colleagues. Results show that the gender disparity in injuries from domestic violence is less than originally portrayed by feminist theory. Studies are also reviewed indicating high levels of unilateral intimate violence by females to both males and females. Males appear to report their own victimization less than females do and to not view female violence against them as a crime. Hence, they differentially under-report being victimized by partners on crime victim surveys. It is concluded that feminist theory is contradicted by these findings and that the call for “qualitative” studies by feminists is really a means of avoiding this conclusion. A case is made for a paradigm having developed amongst family violence activists and researchers that precludes the notion of female violence, trivializes injuries to males and maintains a monolithic view of a complex social problem.     

Crime prevention through social and physical environmental change

One approach to crime prevention where behavior analysts can make important contributions is the modification of environmental opportunities and victim vulnerabilities that are related to higher rates of offending. Examples of environmental crime prevention are discussed in the following areas: (1) modifying physical environments in order to "harden" targets of crime, (2) training victims to be less vulnerable to victimization, (3) eliminating portrayals of certain groups of people that legitimize their victimization, and (4) organizing neighborhoods and communities to strengthen their means of social control. Two implications of environmental crime prevention-the role of individual differences and the scope of prevention-are discussed.     

Exploring gender differences in infant motor development related to parent’s promotion of play

This study explored how parents’ promotion of play may impact gender differences in motor development of six-nine month old infants. Twenty-nine infants between six-nine months of age and their primary caregivers took part in assessments of anthropometry, motor development, video observations of play and a qualitative interview. Results revealed females had significantly higher scores for fine motor skills and significantly higher incidence of touching toys in an individual play scenario compared to males. Males had a higher intensity level of play during both play scenarios. Qualitative explorations found that parents perceived other adults such as surrounding family and friends to promote gender differences but not themselves; however, parents’ verbal interactions with infants did appear to differ by gender. Parents of males more frequently made statements to promote gross motor skills while parents of females more frequently made statements to promote fine motor skills. While biological influences are suggested to play a role on gender differences of motor development early in life, environmental explanations related to socialization, gender-differentiated expectations and experiences amplify these differences to a greater degree than may have been previously considered during this time period.     

Juvenile crime and juvenile justice: Patterns,models, and implications for clinical and legal practice

While rates of juvenile crime have declined over the past decade, public preoccupation with youth violence remains high, periodically fueling judicial and legislative “get-tough” policies and social movements. For most young people, criminal activity, if any, is mild, infrequent, peer-driven, and peaks in late adolescence and early adulthood, declining steadily thereafter. A small subset of persistently antisocial youths begin their criminal careers earlier, commit more frequent and more serious offenses, continue their offending throughout the life-course, and are characterized by a number of neurocognitive, personality, and diagnostic features. Individual, familial, and social forces all combine to influence juvenile criminal behavior, but another small subset of youths, with a characteristic cognitive and temperamental profile, appear to be staunchly resilient to the criminogenic influences around them. The success of intervention and treatment modalities for childhood antisocial behavior depends both on the type of subjects to which they are applied and the consistency and comprehensiveness with which they are implemented and carried out.     

Psychopathy in women: a review of its clinical usefulness for assessing risk for aggression and criminality

Despite a flurry of studies examining psychopathy in women, and the recent release of the second version of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist--Revised manual, there is still little consensus whether the lateral extension of the current conceptualization of psychopathy to women is appropriate. In particular, very little agreement exists concerning the clinical utility of the Hare psychopathy measures to assess women's risk of future offending and violence. This article presents a comprehensive review of studies of the association between psychopathy, antisocial behavior, and violence, in diverse samples of women, and looks at similarities and differences between these constructs in males and females. Findings from inmates and offenders, civil and forensic psychiatric patients, substance abusers, and community samples indicate a consistently lower base rate of psychopathy among women than among men. With some exceptions, correlates of psychopathy in women relevant to risk assessments for crime and violence tend to be modest and significant, generally mirroring what we see in men. Clinicians and policy makers charged with the care and management of women at risk for criminal offending and violence are likely to find the PCL-R and PCL:SV have clinical utility; however, cautious application is called for and ongoing research is required.     

Neighborhood violent crime and adolescent relationship aggression

Research has shown that neighborhoods play a role in the etiology of violence. However, few adolescent relationship aggression (ARA) studies have objective measures of violent neighborhoods. Drawing on a nationally representative sample of youth, this study examines the association between ARA and local levels of violent crime (measured using geocoded Uniform Crime Report data from each of the youths’ residential neighborhoods). Study analyses are based on survey data from 723 youth (ages 10–18) in current or recent dating relationships (351 males and 372 females) in the Survey on Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence (STRiV), a national representative household panel survey exploring interpersonal violence and related aggression among adolescents. About 19% of the sample reported ARA victimization in their most recent dating relationship (ARA perpetration was 17%). Neighborhood violent crime in the study (males living in 86.9 and females 99.8) was slightly lower than the national average of 100. With a broad national sample, 40% non-Whites, hypotheses guided by theories of neighborhood influence were tested. The study did not find an association between neighborhood violent crime and ARA victimization and perpetration, controlling for key demographic factors. The results, for a broad range of high- and low-crime neighborhoods, suggest that neighborhood violence does not seem to affect individual rates of ARA. The results suggest the ARA victimization and perpetration are perhaps ubiquitous and found both in low and high violent crime neighborhoods, suggesting that addressing local violent crime rates alone does not seem to be a path to also reducing ARA.     

Contributors to the Appraisal of Major Life Changes: Gender, Perceived Controllability, Sensation Seeking, Strain, and Social Support

This study investigated relationships between the appraisal of life events and gender, locus of control, social support, strain, and sensation seeking. In group sessions, undergraduate males and females completed self-report measures assessing life events appraisals and self-report measures for the above individual differences. Analyses supported the notion that a range of these variables, previously shown to serve as moderators of life stress, are significantly related to the appraisals of life events. Moreover, in addition to the gender differences obtained for the perception of life events, gender was found to influence several associations between the individual differences and life events appraisal.     

The Perception of Honour-Related Violence in Female and Male University Students from Morocco,Cameroon and Italy

The study investigates the perception of honour-related violence against women in female and male university students from three countries - Morocco, Cameroon, Italy – all considered honour cultures but different in terms of various other sociocultural factors, such as family structure and gender roles. One hundred fourteen Moroccan (47 females, 67 males), 106 Cameroonian (41 females, 65 males) and 103 Italian (51 females, 52 males) students attending Turin University and currently living in Turin, answered a questionnaire to evaluate an act of honour-related violence by a father against his daughter. The results showed that the perception of this act was influenced by the participants’ nationality: Italians evaluated the incident as more serious and more as a crime than Moroccans, and the latter more than Cameroonians. Furthermore, Italians attributed less responsibility to the victim and more responsibility to the assailant than Moroccans and Cameroonians did; accordingly, they also proposed more severe punishment for the assailant than Moroccans and Cameroonians. The results also showed an interaction between nationality and gender: Cameroonian women attributed more responsibility to the victim and less to the assailant than Cameroonian men, and Italian men attributed less responsibility to the assailant than Italian women. These results are interpreted in terms of the importance attributed to family honour in the three countries and their differences in social organisation and gender roles.     

Gender differences in the social problem-solving performance of adolescents

Compared to other cognitive measures, social problem solving has received little attention in research on gender differences. In the present study, the Means-Ends Problem-Solving Procedure and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) were administered to 207 adolescents to examine social problem-solving skills as a function of subject gender, PAQ type, and gender of protagonist. Hypotheses were that superior problem solving would occur (a) for androgynous and masculine PAQ types and (b) when subject gender and/or PAQ type corresponded with protagonist gender. Results failed to corroborate these patterns, but indicated a clear overall advantage for females over males. A follow-up multiple-regression analysis showed this effect to be stable after controlling for English level. In a supplementary analysis, PAQ breakdowns were compared for the present sample and for one tested in a different region seven years earlier. Overall, the research findings imply that fewer adolescents today are likely to identify with traditional feminine roles, and that sex-related personality traits have, in general, a relatively limited impact on social problem-solving skills.     

Do Life Course Transitions and Social Bonds Influence Male and Female Offending Differently? Gender Contrasts and Criminality

A longstanding issue facing criminologists is the challenge of developing theoretical models that provide comprehensive explanations of the onset and persistence of criminality among males and females. One promising perspective that has developed in recent years has been life course theory. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this research explores the question of whether the elements of social development shape the trajectory of persistent offending in a gender-neutral fashion, or are the dynamics shaping life course criminality unique for males and females. The results provide a number of useful insights into the relationship between gender, life course transition factors, and longitudinal patterns of criminality.     

Work Sample Exams and Gender Adverse Impact Potential: The influence of self‐concept,social skills,and written skills

We clarify the existing literature on gender differences in work sample exams by disentangling such differences on work sample exams from other predictors (e.g., situational judgment tests). In fact, we note that there are only two articles specifically related to gender differences in work sample exams. Based on theory and literature from social psychology, neuropsychology, and applied psychology, we propose that the three constructs of self‐concept, social skills, and writing skills are likely to influence work sample gender differences. We tested our hypotheses on two samples of managers. We found in one instance that males scored higher on a technical exercise, but there was stronger support for females, on average, scoring higher on exercises that involved social skills and on exercises that involved writing skills. Work samples that targeted a broad array of knowledge, skills, and abilities were associated with higher overall scores for females (ds of ?.37 and ?.34) and, thus, were unlikely to be associated with gender‐based adverse impact against females.     

Mapping the central structure core in social representation of pain

Previous evidence had revealed gender differences in perception of pain and its socialization. The present research studies gender differences by mapping the central structure core in social representation of pain. Eighty males and eighty females participated in a free evocation task for collecting cognitive elements of “pain.” By defining the elements as nodes and their co‐occurrences as lines, structural characteristics of social representation are analyzed by network analysis. Females have a central structure core in their network structure of social representation of pain. In contrast, males have no such core. These results suggest gender differences in socialization processes around the concept of pain and extend practical methods for studies of the central nucleus theory of social representation.     

Enhancing moral growth: is communication the key?

Traditional approaches in stimulating moral growth following Turiel's (1966) "+1" intervention strategy have been only marginally successful. This failure rate may be due to (a) the inconsistent control of both the cognitive and social perspective-taking prerequisites to moral growth, and (b) an overestimation of subjects' interpersonal communication skills. In this study, 17 college undergraduates (8 males, 9 females), possessing either basic or consolidated formal operations, received eight weeks of interpersonal skills training, along with pre- and posttraining assessments of social perspective-taking and moral reasoning. It was expected that gains in moral reasoning would be related to subjects' possessing the prerequisite cognitive and perspective-taking competencies necessary for moral growth. Results showed that posttraining changes in moral reasoning were in the predicted direction. In addition, gender differences in social perspective-taking were evident; males had significantly lower social perspective-taking scores at pretraining and showed significant gains in perspective-taking at posttesting. Females, however, scored relatively high in social perspective-taking at pretraining and showed no significant change in ability at posttesting. The results are interpreted as supportive of existing theoretical models regarding these domains of development.     

社会排斥情境下自我关注变化的性别差异

本研究关注社会排斥和性别在自我关注程度上的交互作用。结合社会排斥框架下的需求-威胁模型以及性别研究文献, 本研究提出社会排斥会威胁男性的效能需求和女性的关系需求, 并反映在自我关注程度的变化上。本研究进行了4个实验, 前两个实验证实遭遇社会排斥后男性自我关注程度上升, 而女性自我关注程度下降, 后两个实验检验了权力感操控和自我建构操控对于社会排斥影响的干扰作用, 实验结果对相关假设提供了支持。     

Community violence, family conflict, and preschoolers' socioemotional functioning

This study examined the relations among family conflict, community violence, and young children's socioemotional functioning and explored how children's social cognition and mothers' psychological functioning may mediate the outcomes associated with this exposure. Mothers of 431 Head Start preschoolers completed questionnaires about their family demography, exposure to community violence, family conflict, and children's distress symptoms. Children were administered a social cognition assessment, and teachers rated their behavior. Results showed that mothers' reports of children's co-witnessing of community violence were positively associated with police department crime rates, children's distress symptoms, and teachers' ratings of aggression. A path analysis revealed that children's social awareness and mothers' depressive symptoms partially mediated the effects of community violence and family conflict on outcomes for children.     

Attitudes and Attributions Associated With Female and Male Partner Violence1

In an interview study, we examined attitudes toward intimate partner violence (IPV). We examined whether attitudes toward IPV varied as a function of sample (student, general, and incarcerated), participant gender, and abuse history, or as a function of perpetrator gender. Additionally, participants' conflict‐resolution strategies were examined. Findings revealed that perpetrator gender and participant abuse history were the most influential factors in shaping attitudes. Males and females evaluated violence similarly. Overall, there was greater acceptance for abuse perpetrated by females than by males, and participants who had either perpetrated or received abuse were the most condoning of IPV. A lack of conflict skills was associated with IPV. For males, this lack of skills generalized to situations outside of the relationship.