Empathy deficits and sexual offending: A model of obstacles to empathy

Theoretical models of the role of empathy in sexual offending agree on five components relevant to the experience of empathy: a respectful and compassionate orientation to others, perspective taking, affective responding, the ability to manage personal distress, and situational factors. We identify overlap between these components of the empathic process and established risk factors for sexual offending and create a model detailing potential blocks to the empathic process during sexual offending. The model has external consistency and useful implications for interventions with sex offenders. Viewed in the light of this model, we argue that current sex offender treatment programs spend a disproportionate amount of time examining empathy for past victims. We recommend, instead, that treatment aims to enhance offenders' abilities in relation to the components of the empathic process more generally, using creative and engaging techniques akin to those used to develop “victim empathy”.     

Planning ahead: college seniors’ concerns about career-marriage conflict

Career-marriage conflict (CMC) reflects the reality that for many college seniors, the next decade of their lives will be spent launching a career, often a very demanding one, building a long-term romantic relationship, and coordinating the demands of two careers. We focus on the antecedents and correlates of these concerns. Based on social-role theory, we hypothesized that seniors whose mothers worked outside the home while the seniors were children would express less concern about CMC than seniors with at-home mothers. We also hypothesized that seniors’ expectations about the timing of their marriages and childbearing relate to their concerns about CMC, with students who plan to delay family formation having fewer CMC concerns. These hypotheses were supported through an analysis of secondary data from a sample of 324 college seniors at a private university in the Northeast.     

Destigmatization by Association: Improving Children's Reactions to an Obese Storybook Character

Second- through fourth-grade students were read a storybook that described a typical boy who interacted with an obese boy for one of four reasons (sympathy, curiosity, teacher instructed, or no reason) to explore the manner in which a typical storybook character's reason for associating with an obese storybook character influences children's responses to both characters. Results revealed that the children responded more favorably to the obese storybook character after than before learning about the typical storybook character's association with him, especially when the typical storybook character's reason for association was presented as internally motivated (sympathy or curiosity). In contrast to “stigma by association” findings reported in prior research, the children also responded more favorably to the typical storybook character after than before his association with the obese storybook character.     

When an Object Appears Unexpectedly: Object Circumvention in Adults

Obstacles often appear unexpectedly in our pathway and these require us to make immediate adjustments. Despite how regularly we encounter such situations only few studies have considered how we adjust to unexpected obstacles in the pathway that require us to walk around them. The authors considered how adults adjust to the possibility of an obstacle appearing and then also how foot placement is adjusted to circumvent an obstacle. Fifteen healthy adults walked down an 11-m walkway, initially they were told this was a clear pathway and nothing in the environment would change (no gate), they then performed a series of trials in which a gate may (gate close) or may not (gate open) partially obstruct their pathway. The authors found that mediolateral trunk velocity and acceleration was significantly increased when there was the possibility of an obstacle but before the obstacle appeared. This demonstrates an adaptive walking strategy that seems to enable healthy young adults to successfully circumvent obstacles. The authors also categorized foot placement adjustments and found that adults favored making shorter and wider steps away from the obstacle. They suggest this combination of adjustments allows participants to maintain stability while successfully circumventing the obstacle.     

Barriers to Adherence to Child Assessment Recommendations

We conducted a one-year follow-up study of child psychoeducational assessment cases to examine whether and how the assessments were helpful to families. The current report focuses on parents’ views of their child’s assessment as well as the parents’ adherence with the written recommendations provided to them following their child’s assessment. Fifty-one of 72 eligible parents whose child received an assessment in an urban, Midwest university clinic participated. Based on semistructured interviews with the parents about the assessment recommendations, we grouped the recommendations and any barriers to adherence the parents mentioned into categories, and we also rated the clarity and complexity of the recommendations. Findings showed that, on average, parents identified the assessment process as useful and attempted or fully adhered to 71.5?% of recommendations. Parents reported the lowest adherence when referrals were recommended for their child to be seen by other professionals such as a pediatrician or psychiatrist; and they cited significantly more stigma barriers for recommendations to seek counseling/therapy or psychotropic medication than for recommendations pertaining to changes at home or school. Higher parental compliance was predicted by a combination of parents reporting fewer barriers and receiving more home based recommendations. The results support the utility of psychological assessments from parents’ perspectives and suggest ways in which psychologists may increase the likelihood that parents will adhere to their recommendations.     

Eating disorders from parent to child: Mothers’ perceptions of transgenerational effect

Primary prevention focuses on the reduction of risk factors. Children of mothers with an eating disorder are a proven “at risk” group, because children internalise their experiences. Prevention in the field of eating disorders has as yet only addressed children of seven or eight upwards and only in school‐based programs which did not incorporate mothers. This project targeted mothers with an eating disorder who had children under the age of thirteen. The hypothesis is that if these mothers can be encouraged to change damaging behaviour that their children are likely to model, we can attempt to break the cycle of dysfunction. This is a qualitative and quantitive research project, carried out with standardised measures and semi‐structured interviews before and after a nineteen week therapy group, with six and twelve month follow ups. The group consisted of eight mothers. This paper describes the group and provides a case study of one participant. The initial analysis suggests that the support of a therapeutic group allowed this mother enough space for reflection. She became aware of her dysfunctional behaviour and was able to begin to understand the underlying reasons behind it. This led to an improvement in her own Eating Disorder (ED) and she was subsequently able to make change in her responses to her children's needs.     

Interdependence of parenting of mothers and fathers of infants

This study examined the relations among parenting behaviors of 97 coresident mothers and fathers of infants during a dyadic free-play setting. The authors examined the extent to which observed sensitive and intrusive parenting behaviors in mother-child and father-child dyads were related and how perceived marital quality may be associated with the similarity between maternal and paternal parenting behaviors. The authors found support for interdependence of parenting by mothers and fathers. High perceived marital quality was associated with interdependence of sensitive parenting behaviors in mother-infant and father-infant interactions. Negative parenting behaviors by mothers and fathers were interrelated regardless of marital quality. The findings highlight the importance of studying parenting by mothers and fathers as embedded within particular family systems.