Predicting Bidirectional Intimate Partner Violence: Demographic and Historical Factors That Influence Initiating Threats or Use of Violence by IPV Victims

Using data from the National Violence Against Women Survey, this study explored the role of gender and other demographic and historical factors that influence initiating threats or use of violence among a sample of intimate partner violence (IPV) victims—an element of bidirectional violence. For this study, involvement in a relationship marked by bidirectional violence was defined as an affirmative response to this question: Were you the first person to use/threaten physical force? after respondents self-identified as IPV victims. The hypothesized model to predict initiating threats or use of violence among male victims was not significant, but marital status, income, employment status, and childhood victimization experiences did significantly predict female behavior. Age, race, education, alcohol use, drug use, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms were not useful in explaining model variance for men or women. The rates of perpetration were equivalent for males and females; however, these findings suggest that gender is still an important context to consider when theorizing about bidirectional IPV.     

Two spatial maps for perceived visual space: Evidence from relative mislocalizations

When observers are asked to localize the peripheral position of a target with respect to the midposition of a spatially extended comparison stimulus, they tend to mislocalize the target as being more outer than the midposition of the comparison stimulus (cf. Müsseler, Van der Heijden, Mahmud, Deubel, & Ertsey, 1999). For explaining this finding, we examined a model that postulates that in the calculation of perceived positions two sources are involved, a sensory map and a motor map. The sensory map provides vision and the motor map contains information for saccadic eye movements. The model predicts that errors in location judgements will be observed when the motor map has to provide the information for the judgements. In four experiments we examined, and found evidence for, this prediction. Localization errors were found in all conditions in which the motor map had to be used but not in conditions in which the sensory map could be used.     

Establishing a relational field that fosters learning processes: Some tentative propositions derived from trainee experiences

In this article, we look at the recent introduction of more relational-oriented learning principles and how they translate into practice by documenting the experiences of both trainees and instructors. It became clear that actors held different opinions and viewpoints on learning objectives and process ingredients for achieving these objectives. This divergence in opinions resulted in an “impoverished” learning trajectory. We suggest that remedying this situation implies introducing reflexivity regarding learning processes or, stated otherwise, addressing “meta-cognitions” that participants inevitably bring to the process as they affect the way in which people engage in the relational field that encompasses the learning trajectory. Despite some recent arguments in favour of a distinction between cognitive and meta-cognitive mediation, we argue for a similar approach with respect to both types of mediation. We end this article by suggesting that designing learning trajectories with this dual concern in mind might open the road to “learning to learn”.     

Close monitoring as a contextual stimulator: How need for structure affects the relation between close monitoring and work outcomes

In this article, we argue and demonstrate that employees’ Personal Need for Structure (PNS) moderates the negative effects of close monitoring on job satisfaction, intrinsic work motivation, and innovative job performance (as rated by their supervisors). In a field study (N = 295), we found that employees low in PNS reacted unfavourably to close monitoring, whereas employees high in PNS reacted more favourably to close monitoring. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the negative effect of close monitoring on job satisfaction and intrinsic work motivation among low PNS employees can be explained by a reduction of perceived autonomy. In contrast, the positive effects of close monitoring on these favourable outcomes among high PNS employees were associated with increased role clarity.     

Cognitive Mediators of Age-Related Differences in Language Comprehension and Verbal Memory Performance

The present study tried to specify how much processing speed, working memory capacity, and inhibition capability contribute to the effects of aging on language performance. An individual-differences approach was used to examine the component processes that predict performance in language comprehension and verbal long-term memory tasks. A total of 151 participants aged 31-80 completed language processing tasks and a battery of tasks designed to assess processing speed, working memory, and resistance to interference. Latent-construct structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships of these factors and age to different types of language tasks. The best fit model showed first that all the significant relationships between age and language performance are mediated through reductions in speed, resistance to interference, and working memory; this confirms the validity of the general factor approach of age-related differences in cognitive performance. The best fit model, however, also showed that the contribution of speed and resistance to interference is indirect and mediated by working memory, which appears to play a crucial role in explaining age-related differences in language performance.     

Ask,Answer, and Announce: Three stages in perceiving and responding to discrimination

Discrimination towards members of low-status groups takes a variety of forms, and results in a variety of negative consequences for its victims. Furthermore, discrimination may influence its targets either directly (for instance, when housing discrimination makes insurance, mortgage rates, or rents higher for African Americans than for whites) or indirectly, that is via perceptions on the part of the stigmatised. In the latter case the outcomes are caused or amplified by perceptions on the part of the victim that he or she is the target of discrimination. This chapter focuses on current research concerning factors that influence the perception of discrimination and its indirect influence on individuals. We review work from our own lab as well as from the field more broadly, focusing on research that attempts to explain contextual and individual variability in how events that are potentially due to discrimination are initially perceived, subsequently interpreted, and then publicly reported or withheld.     

Leader endorsement in social dilemmas: Comparing the instrumental and relational perspectives

This chapter examines the role of leadership in overcoming social dilemmas within groups. First, based on prior theorising and research we present two alternative perspectives on leader endorsement in social dilemmas, an instrumental and a relational perspective. Next, we systematically compare these perspectives in a series of experiments investigating leadership in social dilemmas created within small groups in the laboratory. The results of our studies suggest that when their personal identity is salient, group members more strongly endorse leaders who are perceived to be instrumental in solving the freerider problem. In contrast, when a social identity is salient, members more strongly endorse leaders who fulfil their relational needs. Based on these findings we propose a differential needs model of leader endorsement in social dilemmas.     

Situated Behavior and the Place of Measurement in Psychological Theory

Measured values of human behavior may entail contradictory attributes of wave and particle by analogy with the wave/particle attributes of the electron. 1/f scaling is the wave attribute in this analogy and punctate data points are the particle attribute. One consequence of the wave/particle duality in physics was to elevate measurement to a primary place in physical theory, and one purpose of the present analogy is to likewise elevate measurement to a primary place in psychological theory. Another purpose is to emulate Robert Shaw's creative use of analogies, consistent with the brief quotation that begins this article.     

The role of self-evaluation and envy in schadenfreude

In this article we address why and when people feel schadenfreude (pleasure at the misfortunes of others) in both interpersonal and intergroup contexts. Using findings from our own research programmes we show that schadenfreude is intensified when people are chronically or momentarily threatened in their self-worth, whereas it is attenuated when their self-evaluation is boosted; that malicious envy, but not benign envy, intensifies pleasure at the misfortunes of others; that these emotional responses are manifested in intergroup contexts via the same mechanisms; and that mere stereotypes, in the absence of any interaction or overt competition, are sufficient to elicit schadenfreude via such mechanisms. Together, these findings suggest that self-evaluation and envy both play an important role in evoking schadenfreude; people feel pleasure at the misfortunes of others when these misfortunes provide them with social comparisons that enhance their feelings of self-worth or remove the basis for painful feelings of envy.