The impact of psychological therapies on violent behaviour in clinical and forensic settings: A systematic review

Violent behaviour is a serious problem in terms of the impact on victims, quality of life for perpetrators, and the financial burden on the prison service, the health sector, and society generally. However, to date there is not a general consensus as to how this can be managed other than removing the perpetrators from communities. Incarceration can be on an indeterminate basis or for a short period of time before reintegration into society, depending on the gravity of the offence. This systematic review critically examines the existing research literature on psychotherapeutic interventions for violent behaviour in forensic and clinical populations. Five databases were searched, selected journals were hand searched, and authors of identified papers were contacted in efforts to obtain relevant unpublished work. The first author and a colleague independently evaluated the eligibility of all studies identified, abstracted data, and assessed study quality. The overall findings provide tentative support for the utility of psychotherapeutic interventions in reducing aggressive behaviour in forensic and psychiatric patients with a history of violent behaviour.     

Separating perception time from response time: the slope transition paradigm

This paper describes the slope transition paradigm (STP), a variant of rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) that separates early (perceptual) processing time from total response time. The paradigm is based on a very simple idea: provide varying amounts of time for perceptual processing and find the moment when the subject begins to waste time waiting for more data. That moment is a measure of how much time was actually needed. The method was used in two experiments. Results are discussed in relation to set-size effects, perceptual capacity limits, attentional dwell times, and some related neurophysiological findings. The method appears to tap aspects of information processing that differ from those tapped in studies of the psychological refractory period, the attentional blink, and repetition blindness.     

The effects of interactive staff training on staff programing and patient aggression in a psychiatric inpatient ward

Interactive staff training (IST) uses principles of organizational psychology to help line-level staff members design and implement social learning programs for severely mentally ill inpatients. IST is a training package that includes assessment of staff perceptions regarding programatic needs, selection of appropriate social learning strategies to meet these needs, appointment of a program committee from within the ward to champion development of the social learning strategy, and participative decision making about aspects of the social learning strategy. Staff on an extended care ward at a state hospital participated in IST for 15 months as part of a pilot study of its effects. Ongoing examination of ward programing showed that IST significantly increased staff and patient participation in rehabilitation programing and decreased the rate of physical restraints and aggression-related. Changes in staff attitudes about rehabilitation programing were noted on a subsample of IST participants. Implications for more controlled research into IST are discussed.     

Vernier offset produced by rotary target motion

Two separated colinear lines appear displaced from colinearity when either the target or the subject’s head is rotated in a frontal plane. The direction of perceived offset is reversed for opposite directions of rotation. The present experiments prove that the effect depends on some property of the visual system that is responsive to stimulus motion per se and is not manifested in the response to stationary targets. Two mechanisms which may be responsible for the rotation-contingent effect are considered: (1) An induction mechanism based on the dynamics of induced tilt or of figural aftereffect displacement. (2) A mechanism based on variation of visual latency with stimulus energy/time.     

Attribution of behavioral intentions to obese and normal-weight stimulus persons

This study examines the relationship between the attribution of traits and the attribution of short-term, situation-specific intentions and probable behaviors, with particular reference to the perception of obese persons. College students performed one of four tasks: (1) Rating photographs of obese and normal-weight female faces for likeability and attractiveness; (2) attributing short-term intentions and probable behaviors to these stimulus persons within the context of briefly described social interactions; (3) judging the situationally determined demand characteristics of the intentions and probable behaviors; or (4) judging the ‘meaning’ of the intentions or behaviors in terms of trait scales. The results demonstrate that although the obese faces were consistently rated significantly less likeable and less attractive than the normal-weight faces, these judgments were paralleled by only a few differences in the situation-specific intentions or behaviors attributed to the two groups of stimulus faces. It is suggested that impression-formation measured in terms of global, dispositional characteristics such as traits cannot be assumed to directly predict many differences in behavioral expectations in specific interpersonal settings. On the basis of the few attributions of intention which did discriminate, an ‘obese personality’ stereotype emerged, consisting either of socially undesirable traits or traits of ambiguous social desirability. The implications of the relationships among traits, intentions and situational demand characteristics for an interactive model of situational vs. personality determinants of expected behavior are discussed.     

Theorising about counselling

The process of counselling differs from other helping processes not only in its aims and methods but also in the nature of the relationships established between the two participants. Clearer definition of these various processes in terms of the 'primary task' and the role relationship which each task involves would avoid role-confusion when individual helpers are called upon to switch from one job to another. An agreed definition of the nature of counselling would also be beneficial on theoretical grounds since many so-called 'theories of counselling' deal not with counselling per se but with varying approaches to the study of human development. The relation between theory and practice in the training of counsellors is discussed in the context of the work of Argyle, Goffman and the learning theorists, as well as Rogers.     

Visual perception of direction when voluntary saccades occur. I. Relation of visual direction of a fixation target extinguished before a saccade to a flash presented during the saccade

In experiments designed to clarify the mechanisms underlying the normal stability of visual direction for stationary objects when voluntary saccades occur, Ss reported on the horizontal visual direction of a brief test [lash presented when the eye was at a specific point in the saccade (the trigger point) relative to a fixation target viewed and extinguished prior to the saccade. From these reports, PSEs (points of subjective equality) were calculated for the fixation target as measured by the test [lashes. The distance of the trigger point from the previous fixation position was systematically varied in each experiment. Different experiments required saccades of different lengths and directions. With the exception of the presentation of the test [lash the saccades were carried out in complete darkness so that the possible utilization of an extraretinal signal regarding the eye movement (change in eye position, the intention to turn the eye, or a change of attention related to the eye movement) in the determination of visual direction could be observed uncomplicated by a continuing visual context. According to classical theories, an extraretinal signal proportional to the change in eye position acts to maintain direction constancy by compensating for the Shift of the retinal image resulting from the movement of the eye. In general, direction constancy was not preserved in the present experiments, and thus the data would not be predicted by classical theories. However, the PSE varied with distance of the trigger point from the fixation target. Since this displacement of PSE from the trigger point was in the correct direction for compensation, the presence of an extraretinal signal was confirmed. However, the growth of this signal appears to be time-locked to the saccade rather than locked to eye position; it is suggested that this growth takes place over a time period which is longer than the duration of the saccade itself.     

Dimensions of “Introversion-Extroversion”

Recently, social psychologists have set forth various hypotheses concerning the conditions that may affect the extent of attitude-behavior consistency. In this research we test the hypothesis, generally suggested by Fishbein, that attitude-behavior consistency is affected by the extent to which attitude and behavior are measured at approximately an equivalent level of generality. Behavior was measured at two levels of generality, and attitude was measured at five levels of generality. As the various attitudes were found to be moderately related, a multiple regression analysis was employed to estimate the independent effects and combined additive effects of the attitudes on each of the two levels of behavior. Briefly, the data supported the hypothesis, showing that both specific and general patterns of behavior were only affected by attitudes measured at an equivalent level of generality.