Psychologists' involvement in cases of child maltreatment. Limits of role and expertise

As psychologists have become increasingly involved in the investigatory and adjudicative phases of child maltreatment cases and as criminal prosecutions have become increasingly common in such cases, the ethical problems facing psychologists have become more acute. Psychologists involved in cases of child maltreatment should remember their primary duty to promote human dignity. In that regard, care must be taken to protect the rights of the various parties, assist the parties to make use of the legal process, and keep implicit or express promises, including those emanating from professional roles. Psychologists must be careful to avoid intruding into the province of legitimate decision-making authorities.     

Resisting Abuse at What Cost? The Impact of Mandated Reporting Laws on the Process and Content of Therapy

Child abuse reporting is mandatory for family therapists. Little is written regarding the impact of mandated reporting and its impact on the family therapy systemic processes. This paper reviews literature on the impact on therapy of mandated reporting, and shares the results of a study designed to assess the impact of mandated reporting on family therapist's attention to systemic issues. The study demonstrates that MFTs shift their focus when the question of a mandated report arises to the detriment of systemic considerations. The institutional split between investigation and treatment of child abuse is discussed.     

Some remarks on failure to meet assumptions in discriminant analyses

The linear discriminant function and the generalized distance function, two special cases of discriminant technique, require multivariate normality and homogeneous variance-covariance matrices, and hence utilize only mean differences among groups. The more general methods can also utilize differences in variances and/or covariances. Tables are given showing the discriminatory value of differences in means, variances, and intercorrelations, taken singly. Equations which utilize all such differences are given for the normal multivariate distribution.The Psychological Corporation     

When technology tells you how you drive––truck drivers’ attitudes towards feedback by technology

Behavior based safety approaches have proven effective in reducing accidents in industrial settings, but cannot easily be extended to commercial driving. For considerable periods of working time, truck drivers are alone, and do not interact with peers. It might be possible to use data gathered by new in-vehicle technology to provide real-time and post-shift feedback to drivers about their driving behavior. This paper reports the results of focus group interviews conducted with subject matter experts from the trucking industry (truck drivers, supervisors, managers, and other involved persons, such as insurance industry safety professionals). The focus groups discussed safety critical behaviors in commercial driving, the best way to provide feedback to truck drivers, and benefits of feedback by technology as well as concerns drivers and operators may have regarding monitoring and feedback systems. The focus group discussions showed that, in general, drivers would like to receive more feedback and that feedback by technology is acceptable, if designed and implemented properly. In addition, the participants had many suggestions on how to properly design and implement such systems.