The role of offender experience and crimes in shaping accounts

The paper summarises the main findings obtained in a wide study on the construction of deviant actions' narratives. In this paper, we focused on two topics: both topics are crucial to suggest new directions in investigative psychology. Narratives provide investigative psychologists with new sets of tools to define criminal profiles, such as narrative profiling. This paper deals with a qualitative investigation undertaken by collecting narrative interviews. These interviews were conducted with 34 prisoners held in two penal institutes in Rome and their goal was to reveal the typical form of constructing accounts taken in a non-investigative context. The specific aim of the project was to show whether differences exist in the narrative accounts provided by perpetrators of crime considering two factors: the type of crime committed and the experience in the deviance arena, which are hypothesised to shape narrations. Interviews were analysed with particular reference to the ‘Evaluation model’ by W. Labov. Participants were divided into three groups on the basis of the type of experience in the deviant field (professionals, intermediates and amateurs) and into four groups according to the crime committed (homicide, robbery and theft, and crimes linked to drugs and fencing). The results show the significant existence of clear differences in the reconstruction of the crime committed compared to the experience of the protagonist. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of a lifetime history of oppositional defiant and conduct disorders in adults with ADHD: implications for clinical practice

IntroductionAttention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and conduct disorder (CD) are frequently co-occurring disorders in children and adolescents. However, their clinical status among adults is still under discussion. This study analyzes how the current clinical presentation of adult ADHD might be influenced by a lifetime history of CD and ODD. METHODS: We compared three groups of patients: ADHD without history of CD/ODD (n = 178), ADHD + history of ODD (n = 184), and ADHD + history of CD (n = 96). RESULTS: A history of CD (and to a lower extent ODD) is associated with a more severe and externalizing profile.ConclusionPast CD and ODD entail a significant negative mental health impact on persistent ADHD, reinforcing the importance of actively assessing the developmental history of adult ADHD patients.     

Covered in stigma? The impact of differing levels of Islamic head‐covering on explicit and implicit biases toward Muslim women

Given the prominence of Muslim veils—in particular the hijab and full‐face veil—in public discourse concerning the place of Muslims in Western society, we examined their impact on non‐Muslims’ responses at both explicit and implicit levels. Results revealed that responses were more negative toward any veil compared with no veil, and more negative toward the full‐face veil relative to the hijab: for emotions felt toward veiled women (Study 1), for non‐affective attitudinal responses (Study 2), and for implicit negative attitudes revealed through response latency measures (Studies 3a and 3b). Finally, we manipulated the perceived reasons for wearing a veil, finding that exposure to positive reasons for wearing a veil led to better predicted and imagined contact (Study 4). Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

La enseñanza práctica de la Psicología: una experiencia de condicionamiento instrumental

RESUMEN

n este informe se presenta una experiencia docente en la que un elevado número de estudiantes de primero de Psicología (140), trabajando en grupos de cinco personas y utilizando unos recursos limitados, consiguieron llevar a cabo un condicionamiento instrumental con ratas en la caja de Skinner, cumpliendo adecuadamente los objetivos metodológicos propuestos. Esta experiencia confirma la posibilidad de realizar prácticas en Psicología a pesar de los numerosos impedimentos que existen para ello, destacados por los autores.     

El lenguaje de los antropoides

RESUMEN

José Eugenio Ortega presenta este dossier sobre el lenguaje de los antropoides repasando algunos intentos de enseñar lenguaje a chimpancés y recordando la gran influencia del “Proyecto Washoe” en investigaciones posteriores desde distintas perspectivas. A continuación explica la clasificación de orden de los primates y las características que hacen de los chimpancés los sujetos idóneos para este tipo de estudios y aborda la polémica entre los grupos que siguen distintos procedimientos respecto a cuál es la metodología correcta, afirmando que en todos los trabajos de lenguaje de antropoides ha habido fallos en el control de variables. En la última parte explica cuatro posturas de los investigadores a la hora de interpretar los resultados de sus estudios, finalizando con algunas reflexiones en torno a las implicaciones de estos trabajos con relación a los de Darwin y manifestando que el estudio de las capacidades de simbolización de los antropoides puede aportar bastantes datos al problema de la evolución humana.     

Incorporating Religion/Spirituality Into Treatment for Serious Mental Illness

This paper examines whether religion and spirituality (R/S) should be incorporated into treatment for patients with serious mental illness. This question merits attention, especially in light of the strong presence of R/S in the United States and, in particular, among members of ethnic minorities. While the literature is somewhat mixed, prior research supports the view that incorporating adaptive R/S elements into treatment for patients with serious mental illness is beneficial, particularly for patients who do not exhibit severe psychotic symptoms. Drawing from our experiences in developing a family-focused Culturally-Informed Therapy for Schizophrenia (CIT-S), we will also highlight the importance of addressing spiritual issues within minority populations. In the second half of this paper, we will present several case illustrations of how R/S issues were used in CIT-S to help patients make sense of adverse situations and obtain much-needed support and coping resources outside the treatment room. Findings from this study indicate that religion and spirituality can often be incorporated into treatment in a way that coalesces with patients’ values and enhances treatment gains. Future research should investigate how therapists’ own R/S values interact with those of their clients, and whether congruency in R/S values has any impact on treatment efficacy.     

Facial appearance and judgments of credibility: the effects of facial babyishness and age on statement credibility

Researchers have found that facial appearance influences social judgments. For example, evidence has shown that facial babyishness and age affect perceivers' impressions of the stimulus person's veracity. In this experiment, the researchers examined whether these variables also influenced the credibility attributed to written statements purportedly made by these people in addition to several topics of interest in deception-detection research. Undergraduates (N = 270) were presented babyfaced or mature-faced photographs that depicted a child, an adult, or an older individual, in addition to a written truthful or deceptive statement purportedly made by the person in the photograph. Results showed that, as predicted, when the statements were accompanied by babyfaced pictures, participants tended to judge them as truthful, but only if the pictures did not depict children. Also, when the statements were accompanied by childen's pictures, participants tended to judge them as deceptive, but only if the pictures depicted a babyish face. Overall detection accuracy was close to chance and did not correlate with either judgmental confidence or with the respondents' estimated lie-detection accuracy. However, confidence and estimated ability were significantly correlated. Also, more confidence was placed in judgments of truthfulness than in judgments of deceptiveness. Respondents' truth bias and the existence of a veracity effect in the diverse experimental conditions were examined as well.