Preventing Violence Against Women: Engaging the Fathers of Today and Tomorrow

Although fathers play a key role in helping their children develop ideas about gender relations and close relationships, they have been largely overlooked as a resource to help prevent violence against women. This paper explores some of the reasons why fathers have not been successfully engaged in violence prevention. Engaging fathers to promote wider definitions of masculinity for themselves and their children is presented as a major mechanism by which fathers could help prevent violence against women. The information-motivation-behavior model of change, developed for preventing high-risk sexual behavior, is applied to the area to provide structure for understanding previous and current attempts to engage fathers. Examples of innovative programs are used to highlight the application of this model.     

Toward Cyber-Systemic Thinking in Practice

This article is an invitation to be reflexive; reflexivity is a second-order process or reflection on reflection. The possibility that a reader might experience a reflexive moment is sought by avoiding a narrative trap: to believe the “coming to” of the issue title implies a state to arrive at, carefully planned, a purposeful journey, pursued by an enlightened individual devoid of all social relations. The author thus begins situated in a social system. Following Maturana, a social system is explained, as is what constitutes, or triggers, change, in a social system. An example of granting rivers sentience in law as an expansion of the social is explored     

Impact of play therapy on parent-child relationship stress at a mental health training setting

This study investigated the impact of Child-Centred Play Therapy (CCPT)/Non-Directive Play Therapy on parent-child relationship stress using archival data from 202 child clients divided into clinical behavioural groups over 3-74 sessions in a mental health training setting. Results demonstrated significant differences between pre and post testing on the Parenting Stress Index. CCPT appeared to be especially effective with children identified with clinical externalising behavioural problems, combined externalising and internalising behavioural problems, and children who were not categorised with clinical problem behaviours but whose parents sought counselling services for them. There were also significant differences determined by length of therapy. Results are discussed concerning implications for clinical practice and further research.     

Intergroup Emotions and Intergroup Relations

Intergroup emotions theory seeks to understand and improve intergroup relations by focusing on the emotions engendered by belonging to, and by deriving identity from, a social group (processes called self‐categorization and identification). Intergroup emotions are shaped by the very different ways in which members of different groups see group‐relevant objects and events. These emotions come, with time and repetition, to be part and parcel of group membership itself. Once evoked, specific intergroup emotions direct and regulate specific intergroup behaviors. This approach has implications for theories of emotion as well as of intergroup relations. Because intergroup emotions derive from self‐categorization and identification and because they strongly influence intergroup behavior, intergroup emotions theory provides an innovative framework for attempts to reduce prejudice and improve intergroup relations.     

Dissociative tendencies and facilitated emotional processing

Dissociation is a process linked to lapses of attention, history of abuse or trauma, compromised emotional memory, and a disintegrated sense of self. It is theorized that dissociation stems from avoiding emotional information, especially negative emotion, to protect a fragile psyche. The present study tested whether or not dissociaters do actually avoid processing emotion by asking groups scoring high or low on the Dissociative Experiences Scale to judge the affective valence of several types of emotional stimuli. Manipulations of valence, modality (pictures or words), task complexity, and personal relevance lead to results suggesting that dissociation is linked to facilitated rather than deficient emotional processing. Our results are consistent with a theory that sensitivity to emotional material may be a contributing factor in subsequent dissociation to avoid further elaboration of upsetting emotion in these individuals. The findings for dissociation further exemplify the influence of individual differences in the link between cognition and emotion.     

Gender‐Role Orientation and Alcohol Treatment Outcome1

This study investigated the function of gender‐role orientation as a predictor of socially focused alcohol treatment outcome. Participants were drawn from a randomized controlled trial involving home detoxification with an add‐on psychological intervention to enhance social support and coping. Participants were classified into 4 gender‐role types (androgynous, masculine, feminine, or undifferentiated). Analysis was conducted relating to differential (between gender‐role groups) treatment effects in relation to the main outcome measures of alcohol consumption, alcohol‐related problems and self‐esteem. The relationship between perceived social support and gender‐role type as a function of treatment outcome was also explored. Levels of psychological masculinity and femininity were more predictive of a socially focused treatment outcome than were sex differences.     

Ministerial Formation in a Multi–Faith Society

This article reports on the findings of a study carried out with ordinands and faculty in English theological Colleges and Courses (programs). The project aimed to discover (a) how and to what extent students are trained to work in Britain’s multi–faith society, and (b) how are ordinands thinking theologically about issues of religious diversity. This article highlights the examples of good practice that emerged from the study and considers what makes for good learning about multi–faith issues for ordinands training for the ministry.     

Back to basics: a componential analysis of the original cognitive interview mnemonics with three age groups

A large body of research now exists which demonstrates that the cognitive interview (CI) increases the reporting of correct recall from various population groups. It is now necessary to determine from both a theoretical and an applied perspective which of the CI techniques, or combination of techniques are largely responsible for this CI superiority effect. The two aims of this study were (1) to examine the relative effectiveness of each of the four original CI mnemonics and (2) to assess their efficacy as a function of age. A total of 125 participants; 34 first‐year undergraduate students, 44 children aged 8–9 years and 47 children aged 5–6 years viewed a video‐recording of an accident. Forty‐eight hours later each participant was individually interviewed and randomly assigned to one of six instruction groups; (1) context reinstatement, (2) change perspective, (3) change order, (4) report everything, (5) report everything + context reinstatement combination (RE + CR), or (6) a control instruction to ‘try again’. Each of the individual CI mnemonics were found to be of equal benefit and to occasion no more recall than the ‘try again’ control. However, the RE + CR combination resulted in significantly more correct recall compared to the individual mnemonics. There was no effect of age group on the efficacy of the various instructions. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.