A Comparison of Victim and Offender Perspectives of Grooming and Sexual Abuse

This study involved interviews with three female victims of on-line grooming and contact sexual abuse and the three adult males who groomed and abused them. Results indicate that victim and offender dyads most commonly disagreed in their accounts of the sexual elements of the relationship, including initiation; stage when sexualization took place; production of photos and videos; and initiation of contact sexual abuse. The study found that the dynamic between offenders and victims of on-line grooming and child sexual abuse can be varied and complex. Findings are discussed in the context of implications for practitioners and prevention.     

Examining Adolescent Cocaine Use with Social Learning and Self-Control Theories

An estimated 1.6 million adolescents use cocaine on a regular basis. Social learning theory and self-control theory are regularly used to explain adolescent substance use, but few studies have examined Hirschi’s (2004) revised self-control theory. This study examines the efficacy of these three theories in explaining adolescent cocaine use using data from the 2011 Monitoring the Future survey. The study finds that Hirschi’s (2004) revised theory and peer hard drug use predicted the probability of adolescent cocaine use in the previous 30 days. When examining cocaine use in the prior year, all three theoretical perspectives were significant predictor of cocaine use. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Repetitive Behavior in Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Clinical and Translational Findings

Repetitive behavior refers to a highly heterogeneous set of responses associated with a wide range of conditions, including normative development. Treatment studies for aberrant repetitive behavior are limited although one promising approach involves conceptualizing such behavior as a generalized inflexibility or lack of variability in responding. Relatively little is known about the neurobiological mechanisms that mediate the development and expression of repetitive behavior, information critical to the design of effective pharmacotherapies, early interventions, and prevention strategies. We will review clinical findings in repetitive behavior as well as findings from animal models highlighting environmental factors and the role of cortical-basal ganglia circuitry in mediating the development and expression of these behaviors. Findings from animal models have included identification of a specific neural pathway important in mediating repetitive behavior. Moreover, pharmacological studies that support the importance of this pathway have led to the identification of novel potential therapeutic targets. Expanding the evidence base for environmental enrichment-derived interventions and focusing on generalized variability in responding will aid in addressing the broader problem of rigidity or inflexibility.     

Weight Loss Is Not the Answer: A Well‐being Solution to the “Obesity Problem”

Americans have been gaining weight in recent decades, prompting widespread concern about the health implications of this change. Governments, health practitioners, and the general public all want to know: What is the best way to reduce the health risks associated with higher body weight? The dominant weight‐loss solution to this “obesity problem” encourages individuals to lose weight through behavior change. This solution rests on the assumptions that higher body weight causes health problems, that permanent weight loss is attainable, and that weight loss improves health. But comprehensive reviews of the scientific evidence find mixed, weak, and sometimes contradictory evidence for these premises. We suggest that a different solution to the “obesity problem” is needed – a solution that acknowledges both the multifaceted nature of health and the complex interaction between person and situation that characterizes the connection between weight and health. Thus, we use the lens of social psychological science to propose an alternative, well‐being solution to the “obesity problem”. This solution has the potential to improve health by encouraging eating and exercising for optimal health rather than weight loss, by developing interventions to reduce weight stigma and discrimination, and by helping higher body‐weight people cope with the stress of stigma and discrimination.     

A Philosophical Audacity: Barth's Notion of Experience between Neo‐Kantianism and Nietzsche

This article addresses Barth's dialectical notion of experience in the 1920s. I argue that the theoretical problem raised by recent studies on Barth's notion of experience after his break with liberalism (i.e. the apparent inconsistency between Barth's move towards an increasingly neo‐Kantian understanding of experience and his emphasis on the existential and psychological dimensions of experience) can be solved by the hypothesis of a Nietzschean influence on Barth's epistemology in the 1920s. I defend not only the historical plausibility but also the conceptual fecundity of such a hypothesis, which casts a new light on Barth's relation to philosophy and the notion of experience, and lays the basis for a consistent Barthian theology of experience.