The effects of different adults as therapists during functional analyses

The differential effects of caregivers and inpatient staff members as therapists on behavior were evaluated within a reversal design. Results indicated that problem behaviors were higher in the presence of caregivers relative to inpatient staff. These results are discussed in terms of how antecedent stimuli can affect functional analysis outcomes.     

Hormones and personality: Testosterone as a marker of individual differences

Recently, testosterone (T) has been linked to behaviors that are conceptually related to dominance as a personality characteristic. Although evidence for this association is growing, the psychometric properties of T as an individual difference variable have been largely neglected. For T to be considered a biological marker of dispositional dominance it is critical that it demonstrates high test–retest reliability and good convergent and discriminant validity. Two studies tested the temporal stability of salivary T in humans and the relationship between T and traditional measures of personality. Across both studies, test–retest reliability for T was high and comparable to the short-term stability of questionnaire-based and implicitly assessed personality assessment instruments. In being modestly correlated with self-reported dominance, T showed some evidence of convergent validity. In being statistically independent from conceptually unrelated personality constructs (such as Emotional Stability and Openness to Experience) it showed good evidence of discriminant validity. The findings strengthen the psychometric foundation for using T as a hormonal marker of individual differences.     

When should evidence be disclosed in an interview with a suspect? An experiment with mock-suspects

The question of whether to disclose evidence to a suspect early on, or later, in an interview is often of critical importance for police officers' interviewing strategies. To shed light on this issue, an experiment was conducted in which 95 participants each committed a mock-theft as a hidden ‘witness’ observed them. A statement from the witness was presented to them during a subsequent interview in which they were ‘suspects’. The time at which this evidence was disclosed to participants, and the evidence strength, was manipulated. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of four conditions; Early Weak, Early Strong, Late Weak, or Late Strong. Both late evidence disclosure, and strong evidence, produced higher confession rates than did early disclosure or weak evidence, and late disclosure of weak evidence resulted in the withdrawal of most of the confessions which had previously been made. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intimate partner violence and the capacity and desire for self-control

ABSTRACT

According to Tittle, the effect of self-control on one’s criminal offending is a product of both an individual’s capacity to exercise self-control as well as their desire to do so. The present study utilized self-report data gathered at a large urban university in Florida (n = 1,307) to test both the independent and interactive effects of self-control capacity and self-control desire on intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration. The study suggests that while both capacity and desire for control have effects on one’s likelihood of reporting IPV perpetration, these effects were independent of each other and no evidence of interaction between to two were observed.     

Preventing Contagion With Avian Influenza: Disease Salience,Attitudes Toward Foreigners,and Avoidance Beliefs1

Building on an evolutionary approach to out‐group avoidance, this study showed relations between perceived disease salience and beliefs in the efficacy of avoiding foreigners as protective measures in the context of a real‐life pandemic risk; i.e., avian influenza. People for whom avian influenza was salient and who held unfavorable attitudes toward foreigners were more likely to believe that avoiding contact with foreigners protects against infection. This finding suggests that individual differences in social attitudes moderate evolved mechanisms relating threat of disease to out‐group avoidance.     

Relationships Between Scores on the General Purpose Abbreviated Battery of Stanford-Binet IV,Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised,Columbia Mental Maturity Scale,and Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test

This study investigated the correlations among the “General Purpose Abbreviated Battery” of the Stanford-Binet IV: Fourth Edition, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised, the Columbia Mental Maturity Scale, and the Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test. A third-grade class of 23 children (11 boys, 12 girls) took all four of the tests, and the intercorrelations of the total scores of the four tests were calculated. The Binet IV and Peabody correlation was statistically significant (p < .01) as was the correlation between Binet IV and Columbia (p < .05). The correlation between Binet IV and Goodenough-Harris was not statistically significant (p > .05).

     

Psychodynamic assessment of changes in children with autism under psychoanalytic treatment

In this article the authors report insights into autism developed through their extensive experience of psychoanalytic therapy with children with autism. The fi rst stages of body psychic development are seriously disrupted by this pathology, resulting in primitive anxieties of falling and of being liquefi ed. These anxieties are connected to the fragile development of body ego and of its related spatiotemporal organisation. The changes in children observed by the authors during the therapeutic process lead them to offer a psychodynamic assessment tool, which revolves principally around the development of body ego. After the initial state of 'severe autism', the authors describe three stages: the stage of 'recovery of the skin' (Bick); the established 'symbiotic phase', subdivided into 'vertical then horizontal splitting of the body ego'; and fi nally the stage of 'individuation'. First, the authors describe the principal psychoanalytic approaches to autism and refl ect on the links possible with nonpsychoanalytic work.     

Tempting today, troubling tomorrow: the roots of the precarious couple effect

The precarious couple effect occurs when men pair with women who are both critical and more verbally disinhibited than them. Evidence that dissatisfaction runs high in such relationships makes one ask why people enter them in the first place. In Study 1, respondents recalled that past partners who were verbally disinhibited were relatively active in initiating the relationship. In Study 2, verbally inhibited men evidenced ambivalence in that they disliked disinhibited women more than inhibited ones but these feelings of disliking did not translate into expectations of feeling tense during the interaction. Study 3 revealed that initial interactions between inhibited men and disinhibited women go smoothly unless (a) the women are critical and (b) the pair discusses a stressful topic. The authors suggest that members of precarious couples are drawn to one another because, in initial encounters, their communication styles are relatively symbiotic. Alas, this initial chemistry does not always endure.     

Girls Arrested for Murder: An Empirical Analysis of 32 years of U.S. Data by Offender Age Groups

Most studies on juvenile homicide offenders (JHOs) have used small samples and have concentrated on adolescent male offenders. As a result, little is known about the population of female juveniles arrested for murder. This study utilized the Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) database to investigate age differences between younger (aged 6–12 years) and older (aged 13–17 years) females arrested for murder in the United States from 1976 to 2007. As predicted, six variables used to test seven hypotheses with respect to younger and older female JHOs in single victim incidents were significant (victim age, victim gender, victim offender relationship, murder weapon, offender count, and homicide circumstance). Regression analysis revealed that younger girls were seven times more likely than older girls to kill children aged 0–12 years. Girls aged 6–12 years were five times more likely than their teen counterparts to be involved in conflict‐related homicides as opposed to crime‐related homicides. Although approximately the same percentages of younger and older girls killed infants under the age of 1, the victims were significantly different for the two offender age groups. This article concludes with a discussion of our findings and directions for future research. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.