Becoming normal: Certification as a stage in exiting from crime

Certification is the final stage in exiting from a career in crime. This paper presents the major elements in the process of certification as revealed by an analysis of a set of life‐history interviews. This look at the process of certification uncovers that, like deviance, conventionality is a social phenomenon constructing from both social action and societal reaction.     

Emotional Dysregulation and Interpersonal Difficulties as Risk Factors for Nonsuicidal Self-Injury in Adolescent Girls

The purpose of this study was to examine a model of factors that place psychiatrically hospitalized girls at risk for non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). The role of familial and peer interpersonal difficulties, as well as emotional dysregulation, were examined in relationship to NSSI behaviors. Participants were 99 adolescent girls (83.2% Caucasian; M age = 16.08) admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Structural equation modeling indicated the primacy of emotional dysregulation as an underlying process placing adolescents at risk for NSSI and mediating the influence of interpersonal problems through the family and peer domains. When family and peer relationships were characterized by conflict and lack of support for managing emotions, adolescents reported more dysregulated emotion processes. Family relational problems were directly and indirectly related to NSSI through emotional dysregulation. The indirect processes of peer relational problems, through emotional dysregulation, were significantly associated with NSSI frequency and severity. The findings suggest that the process by which interpersonal difficulties contribute to NSSI is complex, and is at least partially dependent on the nature of the interpersonal problems and emotion processes.     

Dimensions and Correlates of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Sluggish Cognitive Tempo

The present study examined Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (SCT) in relation to ADHD symptoms, clinical diagnosis, and multiple aspects of adjustment in a clinical sample. Parent and teacher reports were gathered for 322 children and adolescents evaluated for behavioral, emotional, and/or learning problems at a university clinic. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) supported the presence of three separate, but correlated factors (SCT, inattention, and hyperactivity/impulsivity) in both parent and teacher ratings. As expected, SCT symptoms were greatest in youth with ADHD Inattentive type, but were also found in non-ADHD clinical groups. SCT symptoms were related to inattention, internalizing, and social problems across both parent and teacher informants; for parent reports, SCT was also related to more externalizing problems. Findings support the statistical validity of the SCT construct, but its clinical utility is still unclear.     

Charting the Road of Inquiry: Deleuze's Humean Pragmatics and the Challenge of Badiou

This essay responds to Badiou's charge that Deleuze fails to set forth a philosophy that is “beyond Gategorical oppositions.” It is argued that this criticism of Deleuze is founded upon a misreading of the Deleuzean distinction between the virtual and the actual, a reading that carries forward Badiou's misreading of Spinoza and, hence, of Deleuze's Spinozism. With this corrected, we show how the virtual‐actual distinction operates within the experimental philosophy, or pragmatics, that Deleuze, and later Deleuze and Guattari, sets forth. It is this pragmatics that is precisely the philosophy of difference that is beyond categorical oppositions. Through a comparison of Deleuzean pragmatics with the work of Hume and Peirce, we are able to respond to Badiou's further criticism that Deleuze's philosophy fails to understand the conditions for creativity in thought and culture. This criticism is itself resolved once one corrects for Badiou's misreading of Deleuze's virtual‐actual distinction.     

The Relation of Cultural Mistrust and Psychological Health

The relation between cultural mistrust and psychological health was examined using a sample of 125 African American students. Results did not support the notion that mistrust of Whites is psychologically healthy but suggested that a moderate amount of trust of Whites is related to perceptions of personal well‐being. La relación entre la descofianza cultural y la salud psicológica se examinó utilizando una muestra de 125 estudiantes Americanos Africanos. Los resultados no sostuvieron la noción que la desconfianza de los Blancos es psicológicamente sana pero sugirió que una cantidad moderada de la desconfianza de los Blancos es relacionada a percepciones del bienestar personal.