Serial homicide: an investigation of behavioural consistency

To examine if serial homicide offenders are consistent across their crimes, a model was developed empirically that could be used to distinguish between crimes that were instrumental and those that were expressive. The first known three offences in each series of 69 US serial homicides committed by 23 offenders, were examined and the instrumental and expressive themes determined. Three models were then explored that test for consistency across these themes. The most liberal model was found to classify all of the offences effectively and to reveal complete consistency across the three crimes for all offenders. The implications of these results for offender profiling and further study of serial homicide are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When Marcel Mauss’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Essai sur le Don</Emphasis> becomes <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Gift</Emphasis>: variations on the theme of solidarity

Since the early 1970s, Marcel Mauss’s Essai sur le Don (1923), translated into English as The Gift in 1954, has been a standard reference in the social science and bioethical literature on the use of human body parts and substances for medical and research purposes. At that time, three social scientists—political scientist Richard Titmuss in the United Kingdom and sociologist Renée C. Fox working with historian Judith Swazey in the United States—had the idea of using this concept to highlight the fundamental structure of the biomedical practices they were studying, respectively, blood donation, and hemodialysis and organ transplantation. The fact that these first applications of Mauss’s essay should emerge in English- rather than in French-speaking countries raises the question of what the translation of the essay, and notably of the word don as gift, may have to do with this fact. Reading Mauss in translation undoubtedly inspired a seminal approach to interpreting medical and research practices based on bodily giving. This article posits that something may have also been lost: a much broader concept of giving with unquestionable links to the Durkheimian concept of solidarity, which Mauss conceptualizes not only as an obligation but also as a liberty to give.     

Mentalization-based treatment of BPD

Psychoanalytically oriented partial hospital treatment for BPD has been shown to be more effective than treatment as usual in a randomized controlled trial and over 18 months of follow-up. Focus of treatment, in the context of group and individual psychotherapy, was on increasing the patient's capacity for mentalization, the capacity to think about mental states of oneself and others as separate from, yet potentially causing actions. We summarize the research and outline the essential theoretical and practical components of mentalization-based treatment. Core aspects of treatment include enhancing mentalization, bearing in mind patient deficits, using transference, retaining mental closeness, and working with current mental states. Finally, it is proposed that mentalization is a common theme in psychotherapy of BPD and may explain why different treatments "work."     

Self-regulation: from goal orientation to job performance

The authors investigated the effects on job performance of 3 forms of goal orientation and 4 self-regulation (SR) tactics. In a longitudinal field study with salespeople, learning and performance-prove goal orientation predicted subsequent sales performance, whereas performance-avoid goal orientation negatively predicted sales performance. The SR tactics functioned as mediating variables between learning and performance-prove goal orientations and performance. Social competence and proactive behavior directly and positively predicted sales performance, and emotional control negatively predicted performance.     

A hierarchical taxonomy of top managers' goals

To embed goal theories more deeply in the domain of top-level leadership behavior and to provide a vehicle to facilitate future research, the authors developed a taxonomy of managerial goals. Interviews with 75 company leaders-founders and presidents-from 3 countries generated 2,182 articulated goals. Content analysis supported 2 taxonomic dimensions: goal content and hierarchical level. The goal content dimension specified 10 categories of substantive goal targets, and the second dimension captured the hierarchical structure of the top leaders' goal sets, with lower-level goals being instrumental toward achieving superordinate goals. The hierarchy comprised 5 goal levels: ultimate, enterprise, strategic, project, and process. Chi-square analyses revealed relationships between goal content and hierarchical level as well as differences between the national subsamples.     

The development of borderline personality disorder--a mentalizing model

This paper describes a mentalization-based model of the development of borderline personality disorder (BPD). The model takes into account constitutional vulnerability and is rooted in attachment theory and its elaboration by contemporary developmental psychologists. The model suggests that disruption of the attachment relationship early in development in combination with later traumatic experiences in an attachment context interacts with neurobiological development. The combination leads to hyper-responsiveness of the attachment system which makes mentalizing, the capacity to make sense of ourselves and others in terms of mental states, unstable during emotional arousal. The emergence of earlier modes of psychological function at these times accounts for the symptoms of BPD. The model has clinical implications and suggests that the aim of treatment is not only to encourage development of mentalizing but also to facilitate its maintenance when the attachment system is stimulated.     

Early manifestations of childhood depression: influences of infant temperament and parental depressive symptoms

In this longitudinal study, 83 parents of infants between 3 and 12 months completed questionnaires assessing demographic information, infant temperament, and maternal depression. When these children were at least 18 months of age, parents completed follow‐up questionnaires assessing toddler temperament and depression‐like symptoms. We were primarily interested in the contributions of infant temperament and maternal depression to toddler depressive problems, and the analytic strategy involved controlling for toddler temperament in order to isolate the influence of infancy characteristics. The findings indicated that lower levels of infant regulatory capacity and greater severity of maternal depression were predictive of toddler depression‐like symptoms. Moderator effects of infant temperament were also examined, with the negative affectivity * maternal depression interaction emerging as significant. Follow‐up analyses indicated that the risk for early manifestations of depression was attenuated for children with lower negative affectivity in infancy and parents who reported lower levels of their own depressive symptoms; conversely, children exhibiting higher infant negative emotionality had higher levels of depression‐like symptoms as toddlers, regardless of their parents' level of depression. The present findings further suggest that parental depressive symptoms need not be ‘clinically significant’ to predict toddler affective problems. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A test battery to assess intrasensory and intersensory development of young children.

The purpose of the study was to develop a battery of tests for use in evaluation of intra- and intersensory development of young children. A battery of 15 tests (4 visual, 4 auditory, 4 tactile-kinesthetic, and 3 intersensory) was administered to 109 normally developing 6- and 8-year-old and 32 slowly developing or learning disabled children. Interdependence of test items within each intrasensory and the intersensory category was determined; intercorrelations ranged from .00 to .78. Reliability estimates were also determined. Face validity was claimed for each item. The effects of age or developmental level on test performance were established. Based upon the interdependence of the tests, reliability estimates, and the capacity of the tests to discriminate among groups classified according to age or developmental level, a battery of 10 intra- and intersensory tests was proposed. The battery has 3 tests of visual perception-visual memory, dynamic depth perception, and size discrimination; 3 tests of auditory perception-auditory discrimination, auditory memory of related syllables, and auditory sequential memory of numbers; 2 tests of tactile-kinesthetic perception-tactile integration and movement awareness; and 2 tests of intersensory integration-auditory-tactile intergration and auditory-visual integration.     

Potential job applicant reactions to employee drug testing: The effect of program characteristics and individual differences

An experiment varied two aspects of employee drug-testing programs: the purpose of the program (to rehabilitate or to punish) and the drug-testing selection method (for due cause or random and mandatory). Dependent variables were potential job applicants' attitudes toward, intention to apply to, and willingness to accept a job offer from the company. Although the manipulations had no effects, several individual difference variables (personal use of drugs, attitudes toward drugs and drug testing, and subjective norms toward drug testing) predicted the dependent variables.