Police Use of Discretion: A Participant Observation Study of Game Wardens

This study extends inquiry on police discretion by examining the situational and organizational factors influencing game wardens' arrest/summons decisions. Data were collected by participant observation and interviews. Situational and organizational factors seldom, if at all, evident from previous studies were discovered to influence wardens discretion, example, officers' demeanor, professional courtesy, judges, plea bargains, regional directives, and department policy. Danger, authority, and efficiency are important elements of an occupational ideology that may be shared by police and wardens. Theoretically, “police culture” writ large, may be an important source of the patterns of discretion across police organizations.     

Predictors of the first onset of a major depressive episode and changes in depressive symptoms across adolescence: stress and negative cognitions

This 6-year longitudinal study examined stressors (e.g., interpersonal, achievement), negative cognitions (self-worth, attributions), and their interactions in the prediction of (a) the first onset of a major depressive episode (MDE), and (b) changes in depressive symptoms in adolescents who varied in risk for depression. The sample included 240 adolescents who were first evaluated in Grade 6 (M = 11.86 years old; SD = 0.57; 54.2% female) and then again annually through Grade 12. Stressful life events and depressive diagnoses were assessed with interviews; negative cognitions and depressive symptoms were assessed with self-report questionnaires. Discrete time hazard modeling revealed a significant interaction between interpersonal stressors and negative cognitions, indicating that first onset of an MDE was predicted by high negative cognitions in the context of low interpersonal stress, and by high levels of interpersonal stressors at both high and low levels of negative cognitions. Analyses of achievement stressors indicated significant main effects of stress, negative cognitions, and risk in the prediction of an MDE, but no interactions. With regard to the prediction of depressive symptoms, multilevel modeling revealed a significant interaction between interpersonal stressors and negative cognitions such that among adolescents with more negative cognitions, higher levels of interpersonal stress predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms, whereas at low levels of negative cognitions, the relation between interpersonal stressors and depression was not significant. Risk (i.e., maternal depression history) and sex did not further moderate these interactions. Implications for intervention are discussed.     

Music and Video as Distractors for Boys with ADHD in the Classroom: Comparison with Controls,Individual Differences,and Medication Effects

This study examined the effects of music and video on the classroom behavior and performance of boys with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and examined the effects of 0.3 mg/kg methylphenidate (MPH). In one study, 41 boys with ADHD and 26 controls worked in the presence of no distractor, music, or video. Video produced significant distraction, particularly for the boys with ADHD, and MPH improved the performance of boys with ADHD across distractor conditions.There were individual differences in response to the music such that some boys were adversely affected and others benefited relative to no-distractor.In a second study, music and MPH were assessed in an additional 86 boys with ADHD to examine further the music results. In the presence or absence of music, MPH improved performance relative to placebo. Similar individual differences were found as in Experiment 1.     

Anti-Luck Epistemology and Safety’s (Recent) Discontents

Anti-luck epistemology is an approach to analyzing knowledge that takes as a starting point the widely-held assumption that knowledge must exclude luck. Call this the anti-luck platitude. As Duncan Pritchard (2005) has suggested, there are three stages constituent of anti-luck epistemology, each which specifies a different philosophical requirement: these stages call for us to first give an account of luck; second, specify the sense in which knowledge is incompatible with luck; and finally, show what conditions must be satisfied in order to block the kind of luck with which knowledge was argued to be incompatible. What I’ll show here is that the modal account of luck offers a plausible story at the first stage and leads naturally to equally plausible lines to take at the second and third stages, at which a safety condition on knowledge is squarely motivated. There are, however, recent challenges—advanced by Jonathan Kvanvig (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77: 272–281, 2008); Kelly Becker (2007); and Jennifer Lackey (Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86(2):255–267, 2008), among others—to the plausibility of the safety-based anti-luck project I’ve sketched here at each of its three stages of development. Once I’ve made precise the challenges, I’ll show why none implies that we abandon the commitments of the safety-based anti-luck project at any of its stages. What we should conclude, then, is that a safety-condition on knowledge is motivated by independently defensible accounts of (1) what luck is; and (2) just how knowledge should be thought incompatible with it.     

Evaluating Agency and Responsibility in Gendered Violence: African American Youth Talk About Violence and Hip Hop

The results of this study provide insights into the ways that African American adolescents think about gendered interpersonal violence. African American high school students were invited to discuss images and incidents from contemporary urban music culture (events based on incidents with famous hip hop figures and lyrics from rap music) in a focus group format. We explored how African American youth perceived and responded to examples of gendered violence portrayed in vignettes and musical lyrics. The main analyses focus on the question of how youths’ perceptions of hip hop images, hypothetical stories, and lyrics were linked to their views of “normative” gender interactions and interpersonal relationships for their racial group.     

Dialogic reflective e-journaling: providing extra field-based support to special education preservice teachers by enhancing their critical reflection skills and transformative learning

In light of the continual problem of attrition in the field of special education and the need for well-prepared new special education teachers, the purpose of this study was to examine how dialogic reflective e-journaling between the first author and undergraduate preservice teachers impacted the classroom decision-making as well as the transformative learning of these preservice teachers involved in a special education field-based experience in US schools. Performance feedback was given by the first author as part of the teacher preparation supports already in place for the field-based experience. Study findings revealed that dialogic e-journaling enhanced the reflective skills of the study participants when faced with classroom disorienting dilemmas and instigated a positive personal transformation in them as teachers.     

Enhancing the National Dialogue on the Prevention of Intimate Partner Violence

Little systematic information exists about how community‐based prevention efforts at the state and local levels contribute to our knowledge of intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) DELTA FOCUS program funds ten state domestic violence coalitions to engage in IPV primary prevention through approaches addressing the outer layers of the social ecology. This paper explored the ways in which DELTA FOCUS recipients have contributed to a national‐level dialogue on IPV prevention. Previously undefined, the authors define national‐level dialogue and retrospectively apply the CDC Science Impact Framework (SIF) to describe contributions DELTA FOCUS recipients made to it. Authors conducted document review and qualitative content analysis of recipient semi‐annual progress reports from 2014 to 2016 (N = 40) using NVivo. A semi‐structured coding scheme was applied across the five SIF domains: Creating Awareness, Catalyzing Action, Effecting Change, Disseminating Science, and Shaping the Future. All recipients sought to promote IPV prevention by communicating and sharing with non‐CDC‐funded state coalitions, national partners, and other IPV stakeholders information and resources accumulated through practice‐based prevention efforts. Through implementing and disseminating their prevention work in myriad ways, DELTA FOCUS recipients are building practice‐based evidence on community‐based IPV prevention.     

Post-Traumatic Reactions in Adolescents: How Well Do the DSM-IV PTSD Criteria Fit the Real Life Experience of Trauma Exposed Youth?

This study examined the structure and symptom specific patterns of post traumatic distress in a sample of 1,581 adolescents who reported exposure to at least one traumatic event. Symptom reporting patterns are consistent with past literature in that females reported more symptoms than males and older youth reported more symptoms than did their younger peers. Young people reporting exposure to exclusively violent type traumas were also found to be more likely to endorse symptoms than peers exposed exclusively to non violent type traumas. Confirmatory factor analysis provided stronger support for a four-factor model of PTSD than either the DSM-IV model or an alternate model. Further examination of the four factor model revealed gender differences in factor loadings with small to moderate effect sizes for recurrent, distressing memories, flashbacks, restricted affect, difficulty remember details, detachment, limited future orientation, hypervigilance and startle symptoms. Differences in factor loadings with the four factor model were also noted between younger and older adolescents, with medium to large effect sizes on the arousal items. In contract, comparison of the factor loadings revealed only small differences between youth exposed exclusively to violent traumatic stressors and those exposed exclusively to non violent traumatic stressors, suggesting relative similarity between these two groups.