The response to domestic violence in a model court: some initial findings and implications

This study utilized a non-experimental design to obtain information on a full range of domestic violence incidents brought before the Quincy, Massachusetts District Court, a model court. One limitation of previous research on spouse assaults using more sophisticated designs is that the target population has been restricted to specific subgroups of cases thereby limiting subsequent discussions of policy/practice implications of the findings vis-a-vis all spouse assault cases. To address this research “shortfall”, we obtained permission from the Quincy District Court to examine all the spouse assault cases brought before the court during a 7-month period (June, 1995, through February, 1996). The findings show that in a full enforcement environment, victims took out restraining orders only against the most violent, criminally abusive men. Most men who were arrested for domestic violence had prior criminal histories for a variety of offenses. Domestic violence offenders appeared to be of two types: those with extensive and diverse criminal histories and those with little or no such involvement. However, active criminal justice intervention against domestic violence offenders appears to be primarily directed toward offenders already active in the criminal justice system. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Selective impairment of auditory selective attention under concurrent cognitive load

Load theory predicts that concurrent cognitive load impairs selective attention. For visual stimuli, it has been shown that this impairment can be selective: Distraction was specifically increased when the stimulus material used in the cognitive load task matches that of the selective attention task. Here, we report four experiments that demonstrate such selective load effects for auditory selective attention. The effect of two different cognitive load tasks on two different auditory Stroop tasks was examined, and selective load effects were observed: Interference in a nonverbal-auditory Stroop task was increased under concurrent nonverbal-auditory cognitive load (compared with a no-load condition), but not under concurrent verbal-auditory cognitive load. By contrast, interference in a verbal-auditory Stroop task was increased under concurrent verbal-auditory cognitive load but not under nonverbal-auditory cognitive load. This double-dissociation pattern suggests the existence of different and separable verbal and nonverbal processing resources in the auditory domain.     

Socioeconomic Status and Coronary Heart Disease Risk: The Role of Social Cognitive Factors

The aim of this study is to examine existing research on social cognitive factors that may, in part, mediate the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and coronary heart disease (CHD). We focus on how social status is 'carried' in the mental systems of individuals, and how these systems differentially affect CHD risk and associated behaviors. To this end, literatures documenting the association of various social cognitive factors (e.g., social comparison, perceived discrimination, and self-efficacy) with cardiovascular disease are reviewed as are literatures regarding the relationship of these factors to SES. Possible mechanisms through which social cognitions may affect health are addressed. In addition, directions for future research are discussed, and a model identifying the possible associations between social cognitive factors, SES, and coronary disease is provided.     

A family study of outpatients with borderline personality disorder and no history of mood disorder

While several studies have examined psychiatric disorders in the relatives of individuals with borderline personality disorder, many of these studies have not employed a family study methodology and suffer from other methodological shortcomings. Thus, the conclusions from family data addressing the validity of borderline personality disorder, its relation to other conditions, and its distinction from mood disorders, continue to be debated. The present investigation employed a family study design with direct interviews with relatives, structured diagnostic interviews with both probands and relatives, and blind assessment of relatives. Rates of psychiatric disorders were examined in 563 relatives of outpatients with mood disorders (n = 119), 54 relatives of outpatients with borderline personality disorder and no history of mood disorder (n = 11), and 229 relatives of never psychiatrically ill controls (n = 45). Results indicate increased rates of mood disorders and personality disorders in the relatives of borderline probands compared with never psychiatrically ill controls. Familial aggregation of psychiatric disorders was generally similar for borderline personality and the mood disorder comparison group. The results suggest there may be common etiological factors between borderline personality disorder and mood disorders.     

Direct assessments of the processing time hypothesis for the missing-letter effect

When participants search for a target letter while reading, they make more omissions if the target letter is embedded in frequently used words or in the most frequent meaning of a polysemic word. According to the processing time hypothesis, this occurs because familiar words and meanings are identified faster, leaving less time for letter identification. Contrary to the predictions of the processing time hypothesis, with a rapid serial visual presentation procedure, participants were slower at detecting target letters for more frequent words or the most frequent meaning of a word (Experiments 1 and 2) or at detecting the word itself instead of a target letter (Experiment 3). In Experiments 4 and 5, participants self-initiated the presentation of each word, and the same pattern of results was observed as in Experiments 1 and 3. Positive correlations were also found between omission rate and response latencies.     

Parenting Behaviors of Mothers and Fathers of Preschool Age Children with Internalizing Disorders

This study investigated parenting behaviors of mothers and fathers of clinically anxious preschool children (with or without depressive comorbidity) and healthy comparison children. Studies assessing children from early school age onwards have found that parental control, rejection, and inconsistent discipline are associated with the presence of children’s internalizing symptoms/disorders. Despite the scarcity of studies investigating these associations at preschool age, we assumed that findings with older children would also apply to children in this age group. In a cross-sectional study we assessed N = 176 children of preschool age (M = 5; 2 years) and both of their parents. A diagnostic interview (Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment) was conducted to determine children’s psychiatric diagnoses, yielding the following results: a group of n = 67 children with pure anxiety disorders (AD group), a group of n = 38 children with anxiety disorders with depressive comorbidity (AD/DC group), and a comparison group of n = 71 children without psychiatric disorders. Both parents completed the German extended version of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire. We evaluated maternal depressive symptoms and children’s temperament as further correlates. All variables that differed significantly between groups were entered into multinomial logistic regression analyses to test which variables predict group membership. When comparing each of the two anxiety groups with the comparison group we obtained the following results: (1) Inconsistent paternal discipline and maternal depressive symptoms increased and children’s positive affectivity decreased the probability of children of being in the AD group rather than in the comparison group. (2) Maternal overinvolvement, maternal depressive symptoms and children’s negative affectivity increased and children’s positive affectivity decreased the probability of children of belonging to the AD/DC group rather than to the comparison group. When comparing the two anxiety groups with each other, we found that inconsistent paternal discipline increased and children’s negative affectivity decreased the probability of children of being in the AD group rather than in the AD/DC group. The results suggest that paternal parenting behaviors show different associations with internalizing disorders at preschool age than maternal parenting behaviors. This underlines the importance of including fathers in the prevention and treatment of internalizing disorders at preschool age.     

Automatic actions: Agency,intentionality, and responsibility

This article discusses a challenge to the traditional intentional-causalist conceptions of action and intentionality as well as to our everyday and legal conceptions of responsibility, namely the psychological discovery that the greatest part of our alleged actions are performed automatically, that is unconsciously and without a proximal intention causing and sustaining them. The main part of the article scrutinizes several mechanisms of automatic behavior, how they work, and whether the resulting behavior is an action. These mechanisms include actions caused by distal implementation intentions, four types of habit and habitualization, mimicry, and semantically induced automatic behavior (which is later disregarded because of its lack of clarity). According to the intentional-causalist criterion, the automatic behaviors resulting from all but one of these mechanisms turn out to be actions and to be intentional; and even the behavior resulting from the remaining mechanism (naturally acquired habits) is something we can be responsible for. Hence, the challenge, seen from close up, does not really call the traditional conception of action and intentionality into question.