Kriminalprognose bei Sexualstraftätern

Modern methods of risk assessment for sexual recidivism are reviewed, amongst others the statistical and the clinical approaches. The recidivism of sexual offenders is also strongly influenced by basic criminological risk factors like age, intelligence, former criminality, dissocial patterns and poor social integration. A further important risk factor is paraphilia. The analysis of the determining factors of previous sexual assaults is an essential basis for risk assessment. The different forms of sexual assaults are outlined under the aspect of risk assessment.     

Erotisierte Grausamkeit

Paraphilien sind von ihrer Genese her schwer zu erkl?ren, wenn man sich auf die ontogenetische Entwicklung beschr?nkt. Schlüsselerlebnisse m?gen in einigen F?llen erhellend sein, sind aber nicht regelhaft nachweisbar. Der Autor schl?gt ein phylogenetisch orientiertes Erkl?rungsmodell vor, welches die Naturgeschichte von Dominanz- und Submissionsverhalten in den Fortpflanzungsritualen der Arten nachzeichnet. Dabei zeigt sich, dass einige Verhaltensmuster, welche an Sadomasochismus erinnern, durchaus ihren Funktionswert für die Fortpflanzung haben, was ihnen ein Fortbestehen in der aufsteigenden Evolutionsreihe erm?glichte.     

Asian Australian acculturation and attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help

Research with 112 Asian Australian university students found that adherence to Asian cultural values inversely predicted attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. Students completed demographic questions, the Asian Values Scale, the Suinn – Lew Asian Self‐Identity Scale, (which is a measure of acculturation), and the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale. There was a significant positive relationship between the Asian Australian students' level of behavioural acculturation and their attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. Significant differences were found between male and female participants in their attitudes, with female participants indicating greater willingness to seek help. Results also demonstrated a significant difference in gender on acculturation level as well as a significant difference in generational status and acculturation level.     

Sensationalising sex offenders and sexual recidivism: Impact of the Serious Sex Offender Monitoring Act 2005 on media reportage

Differences in extent and nature of newspaper media reporting before and after the introduction of the Serious Sex Offender Monitoring Act 2005 in Victoria were investigated, critically exploring the interface between psychological, media and criminological disciplines. Forty‐three news items before the Act and 90 after the Act were analysed using a thematic and discursive framework. A significant increase in the number of items was found after the Act but other discursive and thematic findings were mixed. Several indicators of sensationalism such as headline size, tone, and theme did not differ between time frames, while there was a significant increase in the incidence of case‐based and high‐profile case reporting after the introduction of the Act. Hence, although the discourse and frames within which serious sex offenders are reported has remained similar over time, the introduction of the Act has dramatically impacted on the frequency of reporting in such cases. The findings are congruent with the extant literature on the newsworthiness of child sexual offending, indicating a need for media outlets to be more responsible in their reporting, and for legislators to enact legislation based upon empirical evidence.     

Attitudes towards psychological treatment among older Australians

Reasons behind older adults' under‐utilisation of mental health services are complex. Barriers to access to mental health services for this group include service access and availability, attitudes of medical and mental health professionals, and attitudes of older people themselves. This questionnaire‐based study sought to investigate variables that may influence attitudes towards psychological help seeking among a late mid‐age–young‐old Australian sample of 159 community‐dwelling adults. The results suggest that attitudes towards seeking psychological help in this population were relatively positive. In addition, >50% of participants in the sample indicated that they had sought treatment for emotional or psychological difficulties in the past, with the greatest proportion of those who sought help noting that it was for “family problems” (56%). The findings suggest that negative attitudes to help seeking in this age group may not be as pervasive as previously assumed, and that help‐seeking behaviours may be high among those with positive attitudes towards help seeking.     

Coherent psychometric modelling with Bayesian nonparametrics

In this paper we argue that model selection, as commonly practised in psychometrics, violates certain principles of coherence. On the other hand, we show that Bayesian nonparametrics provides a coherent basis for model selection, through the use of a ‘nonparametric’ prior distribution that has a large support on the space of sampling distributions. We illustrate model selection under the Bayesian nonparametric approach, through the analysis of real questionnaire data. Also, we present ways to use the Bayesian nonparametric framework to define very flexible psychometric models, through the specification of a nonparametric prior distribution that supports all distribution functions for the inverse link, including the standard logistic distribution functions. The Bayesian nonparametric approach provides a coherent method for model selection that can be applied to any statistical model, including psychometric models. Moreover, under a ‘non‐informative’ choice of nonparametric prior, the Bayesian nonparametric approach is easy to apply, and selects the model that maximizes the log likelihood. Thus, under this choice of prior, the approach can be extended to non‐Bayesian settings where the parameters of the competing models are estimated by likelihood maximization, and it can be used with any psychometric software package that routinely reports the model log likelihood.     

Estimation of maximal reliability for multiple‐component instruments in multilevel designs

A procedure for point and interval estimation of maximal reliability of multiple‐component measuring instruments in multi‐level settings is outlined. The approach is applicable to hierarchical designs in which individuals are nested within higher‐order units and exhibit possibly related performance on components of a given homogeneous scale. The method is developed within the framework of multi‐level factor analysis. The proposed procedure is illustrated with an empirical example.     

Acquiescent responding in partially balanced multidimensional scales

We propose a method for controlling acquiescent response in which acquiescence response variance is isolated in an independent factor. This kind of procedure is available for perfectly balanced scales (i.e. half of the items are worded in the opposite direction to the other half with respect to a general trait). However, few questionnaires are designed so that exactly half of the items are worded in this way. If this is not the case, the available methods are useless. We propose to adapt the rotation method of Lorenzo‐Seva and Rodríguez‐Fornells to handle partially balanced scales (i.e. only a few items in the scale are worded in the opposite direction). The most important characteristic of our method is that it removes the variance due to acquiescent response from all the items in the questionnaire (i.e. the balanced subset of items, but also the unbalanced subsets of items). The usefulness of the method is illustrated in a numerical example.     

Medikamentierte Wut

Considering the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHS), the most common disorder of male children and young boys, from the perspective of a psychoanalytic social psychology, one cannot explain its genesis solely in terms of neuroscience. It would be reductionism ignoring the fact, that it is not possible to define a neuronal deficit of self control without conceptualizing self control as a historically and culturally determined requirement profile of affect regulation. Thus, a social characterological analysis of the disorder is required. Every community and society expects their children to learn in the course of their socialization and education to transform external control into self control, in order to want to do, what is to be done. This process is conflict-ridden and aims at an adaptation by which conflicts are more or less defused. Modern societies propagate a sort of self control which is reduced to self-management with integrated spontaneity. Acquiring such self-management requires from children and adolescents to cope with contradictions. They should concentrate in a consum culture which is oriented on distraction. They should cope trouble-free with disappointments in a culture which is oriented on success. But first of all the boys have difficulties to achieve this. They have difficulties in acquiring the emotional competencies needed for the regulation of aggressive excitements due to disappointments appropriately and in socially acceptable form as well. Lacking this competencies they feel themselves at the mercy of fierce rage as if it was a force of nature. This is the self experience of the 60 boys who were questioned about their ADHS medication in the here presented research project. If the treatment is - against all consensus conferences - limited to medication – and this is much more often the case as so far known -, then the aggressive excitement is reduced indeed, but the patients do not obtain insight into the civilizing function of restraining aggression. And without understanding the sense of the own action they remain in the long run strangers to themselves.