Attributions of Responsibility for Rape: Differences Across Familiarity of Situation,Gender, and Acceptance of Rape Myths1

In 2004 in Australia, controversy over the alleged involvement of elite footballers in incidents of sexual assault highlighted a tendency to denigrate the victims and excuse the perpetrators. To investigate whether rape myths were prevalent enough to explain this public response, 102 university students were surveyed for their beliefs and determinations of blame in rape situations. Although there was a gender difference in the rates of rape myth acceptance, with males more likely to accept these beliefs, these were not evident in decisions about victim blame or perpetrator blame. However, males and high rape myth acceptors were significantly more likely to minimize the seriousness of the rape situation. These effects increased with familiarity depicted in the situation.     

Exploration of the attitudes of employees towards the provision of counselling within a profit‐making organisation

The provision of workplace counselling has risen significantly over the last 20 years in response to the increase in stress‐related illness amongst employees in UK profit‐making organisations. Despite this expansion there is very little exploration of employee attitudes towards this provision. This paper describes a case study of employee attitudes towards counselling in a UK profit‐making organisation utilising an Employee Assistant Programme (EAP) for staff counselling. The method used for the research was a quantitative approach administered using a short questionnaire distributed to employees by e‐mail. The responses to the questionnaire illustrated that most employees were highly aware of the service and believed stress to be the highest presenting issue to the EAP counsellors. However, stress was actually the lowest presenting issue. The results from this study also suggested that managers had a more negative attitude towards counselling than non‐managers. Men and women were found to have the same highly positive attitude towards counselling. Respondents felt that wider, constant and regular positive promotion of counselling, by the employer as well as the EAP, was needed to increase utilisation of the EAP counselling service. Concerns over confidentiality for those using, or contemplating using, the service were also found — as in other studies — but this study found concerns particularly in relation to managers finding out that an employee had attended counselling. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Portrayal of Aggression on North American Television1

The past decade has seen an accumulation of evidence that TV viewing influences beliefs about social reality, particularly in areas related to violence. Detailed content analyses of the portrayal of aggression on North American television were conducted in an attempt to document some of the symbolic messages in television content and the extent to which those messages vary according to program category. The TV sample analyzed consisted of 109 programs (81 hours) chosen on the basis of audience viewing figures; 76% were produced in the U.S.A. and 22% in Canada. An average of 9 acts of physical aggression and 7.8 acts of verbal aggression per program hour were observed, but both type and rate of aggression varied by program category. Other methods of conflict resolution occurred rarely, and few witnesses sought alternatives to aggression. Less than 2% of the aggression observed was accidental, and most (69%) was incidental to the plot. Aggression, especially verbal abuse, was often portrayed as humorous, and there was little evidence of consequences. Some differences between Canadian and U.S. programming were noted. The possibility of using schema theory to understand the role of television in the development of beliefs about social reality is explored.     

Gender differences in response to spatial frequency and stimulus orientation

Male and female subjects with normal or corrected-to-normal visual acuity and less than .25 diopter of corrected astigmatism were asked to make contrast threshold judgments in response to both stationary and drifting grating displays. Results indicate a sex difference in contrast sensitivity as a function of spatial frequency for vertical and oblique orientations.     

Confirming the three-factor structure of the quality of relationships inventory within couples

The current study further validates the Quality of Relationships Inventory (QRI; G. R. Pierce, I. G. Sarason, & B. R. Sarason, 1991) by evaluating its factor structure in a sample of 572 partners from 286 couples. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to compare 3 different models of the QRI and to investigate the invariance of the factor structure of the QRI across gender and across relationship satisfaction. Analyses revealed that a 3-factor solution--consisting of 3 different but interrelated factors (a 7-item support factor, a 12-item conflict factor, and a 6-item depth factor)--best accounted for the data. The authors' findings suggest that full metric invariance holds across gender and across relationship satisfaction in the female subsample, whereas only partial metric invariance could be established for relationship satisfaction in the male subsample.     

Audience effects on food caching in grey squirrels (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Sciurus carolinensis</Emphasis>): evidence for pilferage avoidance strategies

If food pilferage has been a reliable selection pressure on food caching animals, those animals should have evolved the ability to protect their caches from pilferers. Evidence that animals protect their caches would support the argument that pilferage has been an important adaptive challenge. We observed naturally caching Eastern grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) in order to determine whether they used any evasive tactics in order to deter conspecific and heterospecific pilferage. We found that grey squirrels used evasive tactics when they had a conspecific audience, but not when they had a heterospecific (corvid) audience. When other squirrels were present, grey squirrels spaced their caches farther apart and preferentially cached when oriented with their backs to other squirrels, but no such effect was found when birds were present. Our data provide the first evidence that caching mammals are sensitive to the risk of pilferage posed by an audience of conspecifics, and that they utilise evasive tactics that should help to minimise cache loss. We discuss our results in relation to recent theory of reciprocal pilferage and compare them to behaviours shown by caching birds.     

Why Utilize Complexity Principles in Social Inquiry?

Complexity is introduced as a fitting paradigmatic orientation to social inquiry. A complexity approach is compared and contrasted with other holistic social inquiry orientations (systems thinking, cybernetics, and ecological thinking) and constructivist styles of thinking that have informed and guided the evolution of qualitative social inquiry.