Changing the Criminal Justice System Response to Sexual Assault: An Empirical Study of a Participatory Action Research Project

In jurisdictions throughout the United States, thousands of sexual assault kits (SAKs; also known as a “rape kits”) have not been submitted by the police for forensic DNA testing. DNA evidence may be helpful to sexual assault investigations and prosecutions by identifying perpetrators, revealing serial offenders through DNA matches across cases, and exonerating those who have been wrongly accused. This paper describes a longitudinal action research project conducted in Detroit, Michigan after that city discovered approximately 11,000 untested sexual assault kits in a police department storage facility. We conducted a root cause analysis to examine individual, organizational, community, and societal factors that contributed to the development of the rape kit backlog in Detroit. Based on those findings, we implemented and evaluated structural changes to increase staffing, promote kit testing, and retrain police and prosecutors so that cases could be reopened for investigation and prosecution. As we conducted this work, we also studied how this action research project impacted the Detroit criminal justice system. Participating in this project changed stakeholders’ attitudes about the utility of research to address community problems, the usefulness of DNA evidence in sexual assault cases, and the impact of trauma on survivors. The results led to new protocols for SAK testing and police investigations, and new state legislation mandating SAK forensic DNA testing.     

Association between shame aversion and ruminative retribution: Evidence for moderation by externalization of blame and control

Motivation and Emotion - Shame aversion has been theorized to motivate aggression against the self or others as means of down-regulating shame. Additionally, the direction of aggression may depend...     

Employee Happiness: Why We Should Care

Albert Schweitzer once stated that “success is not the key to happiness, happiness is the key to success.” Despite this widespread belief, employee happiness is often perceived by organizations as an insubstantial topic, irrelevant to bottom-line outcomes. Equally as problematic, past investigations have primarily utilized other positive emotion variables as a proxy for happiness, thus convoluting the relationships between happiness and work outcomes. As such, taking a scientist-practitioner approach, the present study sought to address the need to: (a) directly measure employees’ happiness, (b) link employee happiness to outcomes of organizational interest, and (c) assess the impact that organizational psychosocial factors have in decreasing employee happiness levels. Therefore, by measuring employee happiness, job demands, and organizational outcomes through a two-wave full panel design, the present study provided evidence for employee happiness’s ability to significantly mediate the relationship between job demands and organizational outcomes. Explicitly, a high level of job demands decreased employee happiness, which subsequently decreased employees’ organizational commitment, task performance, and contextual performance, while increasing turnover intentions and counterproductive work behaviors. These results carry significant theoretical and practical implications. Future QOL (Quality of Life) and organizational research would benefit from building on the present findings and establishing a nomological net of employee happiness. Additionally, practitioners have the opportunity to utilize this evidence to demonstrate the impact that employee happiness has on organizationally-relevant outcomes and the role that organizations can have in fostering employee happiness.

     

Readers and service commissioners require clear financial disclosures: Comment on innovation,research integrity,and change: A conflict of interest management framework for program developers (Sanders et al., 2019)

Sanders et al.'s proposal for a management framework for conflicting interests among program developers is very welcome. The underlying principles of such a framework must nevertheless prioritise the need for researchers and commissioners of services to make objective assessments of the impact of interventions reported in journal articles. This is particularly important in the field of randomised trials which may influence public sector expenditure. Using a strict definition derived from known financial conflict of interest, we have demonstrated that child-based effect sizes are much lower for independent studies than for studies with developer involvement. On this basis, we propose that journals publishing evaluations of psychosocial interventions should agree a standardised format for declarations of conflicts of interest based on that recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.     

Fathers’ Dosage in Community-based Programs for Low-income Fathers

Community-based programs for low-income fathers often struggle to get fathers to attend services and activities. This paper reviews the literature examining approaches to measuring dosage in fatherhood programs, rates of dosage, influences on dosage, and the associations between dosage and fathers’ outcomes. Studies were limited to programs that conducted randomized control trials, quasi-experimental studies, and one-group pretest/post-test designs. Although most programs report low or moderate dosage levels, some programs achieve high levels of fathers’ participation in parenting, coparenting, and economic security classes. Few studies examined dosage in relation to father outcomes. All but one of seven studies reporting effects showed that higher dose levels had positive associations with outcomes such as engagement with children, parenting satisfaction and self-efficacy, perception of coparenting quality, payment of child support, and earnings from work. This paper discusses future directions for studying father's dosage in fatherhood programs.     

Romantic Conflict Narratives in Emerging Adult Couples: Viewpoint and Gender Matter

Healthy romantic relationships entail understanding the needs of the self and other when interpreting conflict events. Yet how couples make meaning around specific conflicts and their capacity to reflect on their own and their partners’ unmet needs is understudied. Using narratives, we examined destructive (e.g., extreme anger and break-up anxiety) and constructive (e.g., perspective taking) interpretations of past romantic conflicts in 80 emerging adult heterosexual couples and the extent to which such interpretations varied by viewpoint and gender. Couple members were interviewed separately about two conflict episodes in which their partner did not meet their needs (victim viewpoint) and two episodes in which they did not meet their partners’ needs (perpetrator viewpoint). As anticipated, destructive interpretations were more evident in the victim viewpoint and for female couple members. In contrast, within constructive interpretations, the use of insight was greater in the perpetrator than the victim viewpoint. Although perspective taking was expected to be more common in the perpetrator viewpoint and in female narratives, this was not the case, as this type of constructive interpretation was infrequent in narratives about conflict. The findings revealed aspects of meaning making that might be useful to mental health professionals concerned with building skills to improve romantic competence in emerging adult couples.     

Refugee students' perspectives on inclusive and exclusive school experiences in Austria

This paper examines refugee students' experiences in the Austrian mainstream school system. It highlights four areas: school connectedness, social exclusion, support systems and friendships. In the study, 55 refugee students between 8 and 21 years old enrolled in primary and secondary education participated in a semi-structured interview. Data were analysed with directed qualitative content analysis, whereby codes were created deductively and inductively. Students stressed the importance of schooling in order to prosper in the future, particularly through language acquisition. Peers and bilingual teachers played an important role in their efforts to learn German and develop feelings of belonging in the school system. While language acquisition was important for the students, they indicated that other support measures (i.e., remedial education) were largely absent. Further, half of the students reported bullying experiences (verbal, social and physical) associated with their refugee status, language proficiency and religious affiliation. This study has implications for school professionals. The scope of support refugee students receive at school must be broadened, forced migration should be addressed in school in order to counteract negative effects of bullying students receive due to their refugee status and school connectedness can be promoted by hiring staff from diverse cultural backgrounds.     

Utilizing in-vivo feedback for caregiver training of pediatric feeding protocols

Researchers have used multicomponent behavioral skills training packages including written and verbal instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback when teaching caregivers to implement pediatric feeding treatment protocols (e.g., Anderson & McMillan, 2001; Seiverling et al., 2012). Some investigators have shown that fewer behavioral skills training components may be necessary for effective training (e.g., Mueller et al., 2003; Pangborn et al., 2013). We examined the use of in-vivo feedback following written instructions to train caregivers to implement pediatric feeding treatment protocols using a multiple baseline design across 3 caregiver dyads. Correct implementation of the feeding treatment procedures was low during baseline (written instructions only), increased with only the addition of in-vivo feedback, and remained high during follow-up sessions for all caregivers. Results are discussed in terms of clinical implications and caregiver satisfaction.     

Creative Thinking Strategies for Life: A Course for Professional Adults Using Art

To thrive in today's economy and the workforce of the future, individuals need creativity and problem-solving skills. Emotion skills have been increasingly discussed as well, with companies listing emotional intelligence as one of the top skills needed for professional success. The present paper describes a course designed to teach professional adults two sets of creativity skills (problem finding and idea generation) and two sets of emotional intelligence skills (using emotions to facilitate thinking and understanding emotions) using visual art as a medium. The course consisted of eight, 60-min sessions in which professional adults participated in art observation and art engagement activities. Fifty-six professional adults completed measures of creative abilities and emotional intelligence skills in a pretest, posttest, and 2-month follow-up design. Participants who engaged in the course showed significant gains in the originality of their ideas on divergent thinking and problem construction tasks, as well as their self-reported creative behavior compared with controls. No significant changes in emotion understanding were detected. We discuss the course's distinct value to creativity and emotion skills training research.