Women's disclosure of sexual abuse

Abstract

In this qualitative study of women who have experienced nonconsensual sexual activity, participants were asked to write accounts of their experiences focusing on what motivated them to confide in someone, to whom they confided, what the outcome was, and how it effected them. Participants had to be female and 18 years of age or older, and they had to have been sexually abused at some point in their lives. A total of 10 women participated. Nine of the women wrote about an abusive experience that happened to them as a child, and one wrote about an experience that occurred in adulthood. The participants wrote that they were able to disclose their past sexually abusive experience because they felt safe with the person to whom they confided, they felt they needed help, and the opportunity presented itself. They were more likely to disclose to non-family members than family members, and the majority of the people they disclosed to had a positive reaction. Consequently, most of the women in this study were positively affected by their disclosure. Findings of this study are similar to those of other studies on disclosure and sexual abuse.     

Personality consistency: Eminent architects 25 years later

One hundred and twenty‐four American male architects representing three levels of eminence and creativity were studied by Donald W. MacKinnon and his collaborators in 1958–1960. The present report is based on a follow‐up of 70 of the 83 (78%) surviving architects (mean age 71 years, with a range of 62–88). The architects were individually interviewed at their place of residence between 1983–1984 and received several of the same tests they had received 25 years before, including the Adjective Check List (ACL) and the California Psychological Inventory (CPI). The present study offered the architects a chance to look back at lifelong careers, and it allowed the researchers to establish that the distinct personality characteristics of the three groups of architects remained remarkably stable, and were at least partially responsible for moderating longevity and achievement. Opportunities for full‐time practice were radically different for the three groups after age 65. The interview data suggested that factors that are responsible for successful productivity in old age include: (a) commitment and drive; (b) overlearned skills; (c) aesthetic sensitivity; (d) ability to be a good salesman; and (e) ability to delegate responsibility. The continuing impressive creativity of the architects can be best explained by Simonton's (1984) constant probability of success model.     

The fading affect bias across alcohol consumption frequency for alcohol-related and non-alcohol-related events

The Fading Affect Bias (FAB) is the tendency for unpleasant emotions to fade more over time than pleasant emotions (Walker, Vogl, & Thompson, 1997). The FAB is negatively related to dysphoria (Walker, Skowronski, Gibbons, Vogl, & Thompson, 2003), which led researchers to suggest that the FAB is a healthy coping mechanism that improves the overall positivity of life (Walker, Skowronski, & Thompson, 2003). The FAB may also reinforce certain maladaptive behaviors, such as drinking alcohol, as the unpleasant emotions associated with those behaviors quickly fade from memory, and increase the likelihood of those behaviors in the future. If the FAB increases the likelihood of maladaptive alcohol consumption, the FAB should be greatest for ordinary events at low alcohol consumption levels, whereas the FAB should be greatest for alcohol events at high alcohol consumption levels. The results of two studies provided support for the hypotheses. The implications are discussed.     

Fearlessness in juvenile offenders is associated with offending rate

Poor fear conditioning is a correlate of violent offending in adults, but there is no evidence concerning juvenile offenders. Our aim was to compare emotional learning in juvenile offenders and controls and establish whether crime rate is related to seriousness of emotional learning problems. To this end, emotional learning was assessed in 42 juvenile offenders by measuring skin conductance responding (SCR) during fear conditioning. Compared to controls, juvenile offenders showed lower conditioned SCRs to visual stimuli associated with a subsequent aversive stimulus and the magnitude of the SCR during fear acquisition was inversely associated with the number of their recorded offences. These findings suggest that juvenile offenders have impairments in the neural systems that subserve emotional learning. The implication is that using punitive measures to control persistent offenders is unlikely to be effective in an identifiable group of juvenile offenders.     

A review of the role of empathy in violence risk in mental disorders

Despite an established link between certain mental disorders and violence, the origins of this are not always clear. Recent work has suggested a role for social cognition deficits in this relationship. We conducted a systematic literature search using EMBASE, SCOPUS, PsychINFO, Science Direct and Ovid Medline databases and search terms relating to empathy, violence and mental disorders. 15 studies were classified as assessing either theory of mind (ToM) (n = 6) or facial affect recognition (FAR) (n = 10). Better mentalizing ability may be linked with violence. Violent patients with schizophrenia perform worse than those with personality disorder, but outperform their non-violent counterparts on complex theory of mind tasks. Six studies examined facial affect recognition in violent psychopathy patients, three of which found impairments in high psychopathy patients. Four studies investigated FAR in violent schizophrenia patients, who again tended to outperform non-violent patients, though the evidence for specificity of emotion remains mixed. Empathy may play a mediating role in the relationship between violence and mental disorder. Current findings are limited by methodological inconsistencies. Future studies would benefit from more comprehensive assessments of violence and co-morbidities, and more standardized measures across studies.     

Relationship between family religious behaviors and child well-being among third-grade children

While there is growing empirical evidence that religion can have a positive impact on the health and well-being of adults and adolescents, less is known about its influence on the welfare of children. The current paper examined the relative importance of family religiosity and religious behaviors on multiple measures of children's well-being (general health, academic achievement, social skills, and behavior problems) and sought to identify whether religious variables contribute above and beyond non-religious measures of family caregiving. Parent use of religious coping and family religious behaviors, the latter defined as attendance at religious or spiritual programs, predicted several aspects of child well-being above and beyond parenting styles. Parental religious coping significantly predicted child social skills and externalizing behaviors above and beyond parenting styles. Family religious service attendance significantly predicted child health and social skills, and inversely predicted internalizing behaviors, above and beyond both parenting styles and parent use of religious coping.     

Age and race differences in racial stereotype awareness and endorsement

Age and race differences in race stereotype awareness and endorsement were examined in 382 Black and White fourth, sixth, and eighth graders. Youths reported their own beliefs and their perceptions of adults' beliefs about racial differences in ability in two domains: academics and sports. Children's own endorsement of race stereotypes was highly correlated with their perceptions of adults' race stereotypes. Blacks reported stronger traditional sports stereotypes than Whites, and 4th‐ and 6th‐grade Blacks reported roughly egalitarian academic stereotypes. At every grade level, Whites reported academic stereotypes that favored Whites, and 6th‐ and 8th‐grade Whites reported sports stereotypes that favored Blacks. Results support the tenets of status theory and have implications for identity development and achievement motivation in adolescents.     

A Non-factualist defense of the Reflection principle

Are there plausible synchronic constraints on how a subject thinks of herself extended over time? At first glance, Bas van Fraassen’s principle of Reflection seems to prescribe the sort of epistemic authority one’s future self should be taken by one to have over one’s current epistemic states. (The gist of this principle is that I should now believe what I’m convinced I will believe tomorrow.) There has been a general consensus that, as a principle concerning epistemic authority, Reflection does not apply to epistemically non-ideal agents. I agree with this, but argue here that it misses the point of Reflection. Rather than an epistemic principle concerning reasons for belief, Reflection concerns the semantics of belief avowal. I present a non-factual interpretation of Reflection, argue that the principle provides a constraint on the ways in which one can reflectively endorse one’s future epistemic self, and say something about the logic governing such an interpretation.