Self‐Reported Current Practices in Child Forensic Interviewing: Training,Tools, and Pre‐Interview Preparation

In child sexual abuse investigations, forensic interviewers within the Child Advocacy Center (CAC) model serve as neutral fact‐finders for a team of professionals tasked with investigating and intervening in cases of alleged child sexual abuse. Although empirical evidence has led to the development of best‐practice techniques and protocols, there is currently no universally adopted protocol in the field. The present research gathered detailed information from a national sample of real‐world child forensic interviewers about their training and current practices, with a specific focus on assessing the information interviewers typically review prior to conducting child forensic interviews. Most notably, the survey revealed a lack of uniformity in interviewing protocols adopted and pre‐interview preparation practices. Although rare, some interviewers reported using an allegation‐blind interviewing approach, highlighting the need for future research on this and other under‐studied techniques. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attentional biases in PTSD: More evidence for interference

Attentional biases to trauma-related stimuli have been widely demonstrated in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the majority of these studies used methods not suited to differentiating difficulty disengaging attention from threatening stimuli (interference) from facilitated detection of threat. In the current study, a visual search task (VST) with a lexical decision component was used to differentiate between attentional interference and facilitation. Forty-six sexual assault survivors with High PTSD or Low PTSD symptoms completed the VST with three types of stimuli (trauma-related, general threat-related, and semantically-related neutral words), to examine the specificity of attentional biases associated with PTSD symptoms. High PTSD participants showed increased interference to trauma-related words relative to Low PTSD participants. Furthermore, the increased attentional interference in High PTSD participants was specific to trauma-related stimuli. No evidence was found for facilitated detection of threatening stimuli in PTSD. These results provide additional support for attentional biases in PTSD relating to attentional interference with trauma-related cues rather than facilitated detection of threat. The implications for this pattern of results are discussed in relation to anxiety disorders that are characterized by rumination and/or intrusions (e.g., PTSD, GAD) rather than those more circumscribed to fight or flight response (e.g., phobias).     

Gaming, Gender, and Time: Who Makes Time to Play?

This study investigated gender differences in the perceived benefits of workplace friendships and the relationship between friendship factors and organizational outcomes. Four hundred and forty-five respondents from predominantly Western countries including New Zealand, Australia and America completed an Internet based questionnaire which asked them to describe the benefits received from workplace friends, and which measured workplace friendship and organizational variables. Friendship prevalence and opportunities were more strongly correlated with job satisfaction for men. Women were significantly more likely than men to describe the benefits of workplace friendship in terms of social and emotional support in times of stress, while men focused mainly on the benefits friends provided them in their career or in functional aspects of ‘getting the job done’.     

Posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, physiological reactivity, alcohol problems, and aggression among military veterans

This study examined the association between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology and aggressive behavior among a sample of male Vietnam veterans (N = 1,328). Results indicated that the hyperarousal PTSD symptom cluster evidenced the strongest positive association with aggression at the bivariate level when compared with the other PTSD symptom clusters. When the PTSD symptom clusters were examined together as predictors, hyperarousal symptoms evidenced a significant positive relationship with aggression, and avoidance/numbing symptoms were negatively associated with aggression. Examination of potential mediators indicated that hyperarousal symptoms were directly associated with aggression and indirectly related to aggression via alcohol problems. Reexperiencing symptoms were associated with aggression only indirectly and through their positive association with physiological reactivity and negative association with alcohol problems. Study results highlight the complexity of the relationship between PTSD symptoms and aggression, and suggest possible mechanisms explaining this association.     

Clinicopathological findings of suicide in the elderly: three cases

The neuropathological correlates of suicide in older persons have received little research attention. Our recent study of elderly suicide victims from an Australian forensic medicine department (n = 143), unlike a previous case-control study, did not find an increased prevalence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in older persons who committed suicide despite a history of dementia in 6.3%. Both studies were limited to the examination of AD-related pathology by the availability of tissue. We present clinicopathological data on three cases from our study for whom autopsy findings were available. These cases included: a community-dwelling male in his early eighties with dementia who was found to have multiple cortical and striatal lacunes and glial scars, small vessel cerebrovascular disease (SVD) and AD-related pathology; a community-dwelling male in his mid-seventies with depression and loss of concentration, with brainstem predominant Lewy body disease (LBD) and AD-related pathology; and a female nursing home resident in her nineties with a history of stroke and prior suicide attempts who was found to have infarcts and SVD in frontal regions. Neuropathological findings in elderly suicide victims may include multiple neurodegenerative pathologies. The burden and distribution of neurodegenerative diseases apart from AD, including SVD and LBD, should be assessed as possible pathophysiological factors contributing to late life suicide.     

Social validity assessment of behavior data recording among human services care providers

Care providers within human services organizations have many job responsibilities and performance expectations. In the present study, we conducted social validity assessment with 78 care providers concerning their attitudes and opinions about behavior data recording with adults who had intellectual disability and lived in community group homes. Specifically, the care providers responded to a written questionnaire that inquired about the practicality, training/supervision, and value of behavior data recording in the context of service delivery. Results indicated generally high approval of behavior data recording practices, purposes, and approaches to training. We discuss implications of these findings for implementing data recording by care providers and the contribution of social validity assessment to training and performance management within human services organizations.     

Validity of the SDS-17 measure of social desirability in the American context

In Germany, Stober et al. (1999, 2001) presented evidence for the validity of the SDS-17, a new measure of social desirability bias. In the current investigation, three experiments (n = 800) assessed the SDS-17’s validity in the US environment. In all conditions SDS-17 scores correlated highly with Marlowe–Crowne scores. In Study 1, a group administration of a paper and pencil booklet, SDS-17 scores of 327 college students were higher under Fake Good than Standard conditions, and both were higher than scores in the Honest condition. Study 2, an online survey of a demographically diverse adult sample (n = 257), showed that the increase in SDS-17 scores under Fake Good conditions occurs also in a Web survey and that SDS-17 scores were unrelated to one’s demographic profile. Study 3, a group administration to 216 college students, revealed again that scores under Fake Good were higher than those under Standard administration and that SDS-17 scores correlated more highly with the Impression Management than with the Self-Deception subscales of the BIDR. The SDS-17 appeared valid for the US environment as a measure of socially desirable responding. The evidence, however, encourages its further assessment as an index of social desirability bias per se.     

“Blind” interviewing: Is ignorance bliss?

Current investigative interviewing guidelines [e.g., Technical Working Group: Eyewitness evidence. (1999). Eyewitness evidence: A guide for law enforcement. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/178240.pdf] suggest that interviewers review available case information prior to conducting a witness interview. The present study investigated the effect of interviewers’ pre-interview awareness of crime details on eyewitnesses’ memory and interviewer behaviour shortly after a mock crime or a week later. Results indicate that blind interviewers with no knowledge about the crime elicited more correct information than those who were correctly informed about the crime. Differences in interviewer behaviour emerged only in the very first question of the interview: Blind interviewers were more likely to begin the interview with a non-suggestive question than the informed interviewers. Blind interviewers also recalled more details than the informed interviewers when asked to generate a report after the witness interview documenting the witness’ account.