Factors that Predict Attrition from a State-Sponsored Rural Batterer Treatment Program

This study sought to identify factors associated with attrition for 197 individuals who participated in a state-sponsored rural domestic violence treatment program. Bivariate analyses identified 10 factors associated with program attrition. Logistic regression identified three of these (employment status, psychiatric disorder type, and probation status) as significant predictors of attrition. This three-factor model predicted 78% of all outcomes and 43% and 92% of dropouts and completers, respectively. The data suggest that batterer characteristics, particularly batterer psychopathology, unemployment, and criminal history, are more influential determinants of attrition than systemic and programmatic factors. These findings are discussed with respect to their congruence with the literature and their implications for policy, practice, and future research.     

Behaving badly: A perspective on mechanisms of dysfunction in psychopathy

Psychopathy is a personality construct defined by lack of empathy, impulsivity, grandiosity, callous and manipulative interpersonal interactions, and the tendency to engage in socially deviant behavior. Psychopathy has been associated with aggression, recidivism, and other behaviors harmful to others. Individuals high in psychopathy have been thought to be notoriously difficult to treat. Many scholars have suggested that considering mechanisms of dysfunction in psychological difficulties will lead to the development of more effective and efficacious treatments. Fearlessness, lack of empathy, and response modulation difficulties have commonly been discussed as mechanisms of dysfunction in psychopathy. The current review provides a brief overview of examinations of these mechanisms of dysfunction in psychopathy, comments on research methodology, and provides suggestions for remedying potential pitfalls.     

Analogical inference: The role of awareness in abstract learning

The acquisition and flexible expression of complex relations is often attributed to declarative memory processes. The extent to which such tasks may be done implicitly has not been sufficiently explored. We report that analogical or transfer processes may be accomplished implicitly. Our analogy task requires acquisition of a transverse patterning set, and then tests for transfer on an unrelated set. Participants learn the relations A>B (given a choice between A and B choose A) and B>C and the unrelated set X>Y and Y>Z. Only the experimental group was trained on the transverse pair C>A. At test all trials are unreinforced: A?B, B?C, A?C, X?Y, Y?Z, X?Z. Analogy was observed when the experimental group chose Z>X at greater frequency than controls who uniformly chose X>Z. Analogy occurred with or without awareness of the transfer. The capacity to transfer relations to an analogous set demonstrates a level of flexibility and abstraction not generally thought to be possible for implicit processes.     

Perceptual Analysis and Sensory Integration in Brain-Damaged Persons

(Ames, L. B., Learned, J., Metraux, R. W., &; Walker, R. N. Child Rorschach Responses: Developmental Trends from Two to Ten Years. New York: Hoeber, 1952. Pp. 310.): Reviewed by Bettye M. Caldwell     

Denominational Variations Across American Jewish Communities

This article explores the Jewish identity of different Jewish denominational identification groups using the Decade 2000 Data Set with its 19,800 interviews of Jewish households in 22 American Jewish communities. We relate the Jewish identity of individuals in each denominational group (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform/Reconstructionist) to the denominational composition of the community. Communities are clustered via k‐means cluster analysis based on their denominational profiles. We examine the extent to which individual Jewish identification varies by the denominational composition of the community in which an individual resides, finding that considerable variation exists in Jewish identity measures depending on the type of denominational profile that exists in the individual's community. That is, Orthodox Jews, for example, behave differently in a community with a significant Orthodox population than in a community with few Orthodox, but many Reform Jews. Implications for Jewish communities, as well as for the broader interreligious community, are considered.