Identifying the Developmental Strengths of Juvenile Offenders: Assessing Four Life‐Skills Dimensions

The authors describe the development of the Life‐Skills Development Scale Juvenile Form, a brief self‐report instrument for assessing the life‐skills development of juvenile offenders. Reliability and validity findings are presented, implications for treatment planning are provided, and recommendations for further research are discussed.     

Pathological Conflict Avoidance in Anorexia Nervosa: Family Perspectives

Conflict avoidance is a common pattern in families of patients with anorexia nervosa (AN), but little systematic controlled research has been conducted to elucidate the formal mechanics of such interaction. Forty family triads with daughters suffering from AN were compared to 40 matched control (CON) triads, on five measures of conflictual family situations. Results revealed that the AN group had significantly more difficulty in choosing the topic of discussion, adhering to the topic, developing and exploring the chosen topic, and reaching a solution—all within a family setting. Findings empirically support previous clinical and research evidence on the pathological avoidance of conflict in families with a member who has AN. Therapeutic implications are discussed.     

Launching themes in Israeli fathers and mothers

This study focused on launching processes as reflected in the reactions of Israeli parents to the drafting of their eldest son. A questionnaire tapping parents' reactions was constructed and administered to 237 couples. Factor analysis delineated eight substantive factors: Emotional Investment, Parent-Child Strains, Fostering Son's Maturity, Parental Disengagement, Parent's Transitional Phase, Dissatisfaction with Army, Son's Unpreparedness, and Strengthening Family Relations. The factors depicted modes of coping with launching and transitional midlife processes. The construct validity of the factor scales was examined in a multivariate regression analysis with 12 predictor variables related to sociodemographics, attitudes, personal concerns, and satisfactions. Mothers differed from fathers in some factor scale means as well as in the pattern in which the predictor variables related to the factor scale scores. The results are interpreted in terms of ambivalent launching reactions involving distress on the one hand and a sense of growth on the other. While adaptation to this transition in the family takes place within a specific cultural context, its implications for universal launching features are also discussed.     

Reasons-responsiveness,control and the negligence puzzle

A longstanding puzzle about moral responsibility for negligence arises from three plausible yet jointly inconsistent theses: (i) an agent can, in certain circumstances, be morally responsible for some outcome O, even if her behavior with respect to O is negligent (i.e., even if she never adverted to the possibility that the behavior might result in O), (ii) an agent can be morally responsible for O only if she has some control over O, (iii) if an agent acts negligently with respect to O, then she has no control over O. This paper is in two parts. First, I argue that reasons-responsiveness models of moral responsibility can be applied naturally to negligence scenarios; indeed, agents are intuitively responsible for the outcomes of their negligent behavior just when they meet the conditions for responsibility given by the best reason-responsiveness theories. Second, if the reasons-responsiveness conditions are applicable to negligence scenarios then one of two things follows: either agents can have direct control over outcomes they never adverted to, or reasons-responsiveness is not a condition of control but of something else connected to moral responsibility. Each possibility would be important in its own right—and each can solve the negligence puzzle.     

The psychology of hate: Moral concerns differentiate hate from dislike

We investigated whether any differences in the psychological conceptualization of hate and dislike were simply a matter of degree of negativity (i.e., hate falls on the end of the continuum of dislike) or also morality (i.e., hate is imbued with distinct moral components that distinguish it from dislike). In three lab studies in Canada and the United States, participants reported disliked and hated attitude objects and rated each on dimensions including valence, attitude strength, morality, and emotional content. Quantitative and qualitative measures revealed that hated attitude objects were more negative than disliked attitude objects and associated with moral beliefs and emotions, even after adjusting for differences in negativity. In Study 4, we analysed the rhetoric on real hate sites and complaint forums and found that the language used on prominent hate websites contained more words related to morality, but not negativity, relative to complaint forums.     

Connection between Suicidal Ideation,Life Meaning,and Leisure Time Activities

This study is an examination of the links between adolescent suicidal ideation, life meaning, and the ways they spend their leisure time. The sample consisted of 450 students aged 15–18. Findings showed a significant negative correlation between suicidal ideation and sense of life meaning, encompassing factors such as age and gender. Adolescents with involvement in social activities demonstrated lower levels of suicidal ideation (total score), and lower levels of depression and anxiety, than the other two groups. The study discusses the research and practical implications of these findings. The findings suggest the possibility of establishing prevention, intervention, and therapy programs for adolescents based on life meaning.     

The interaction between emotion and executive control: Comparison between visual,auditory, and tactile modalities

The reciprocal connections between emotion and attention are vital for adaptive behaviour. Previous results demonstrated that the behavioural effects of emotional stimuli on performance are attenuated when executive control is recruited. The current research studied whether this attenuation is modality dependent. In two experiments, negative and neutral pictures were presented shortly before a visual, tactile, or auditory target in a Simon task. All three modalities demonstrated a Simon effect, a conflict adaptation effect, and an emotional interference effect. However, the interaction between picture valence and Simon congruency was found only in the visual task. Specifically, when the Simon target was visual, emotional interference was reduced during incongruent compared to congruent trials. These findings suggest that although the control-related effects observed in the Simon tasks are not modality dependent, the link between emotion and executive control is modality dependent. Presumably, this link occurs only when the emotional stimulus and the target are presented in the same modality.     

Use of a structured investigative protocol enhances the quality of investigative interviews with alleged victims of child sexual abuse in Britain

One hundred alleged victims of child sexual abuse (aged 4–13; M = 9.3 years) were interviewed by police investigators about their alleged experiences. Half of the children were interviewed using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) structured interview Protocol, whereas the other children, matched with respect to their age, relationship with the alleged perpetrator, and seriousness of the alleged offenses, were interviewed by investigators following the Memorandum of Good Practice. Protocol‐guided interviews elicited more information using free‐recall invitations and less information using directive, option‐posing and suggestive questions than did standard Memorandum interviews. There were no age differences in the proportion of total information provided in response to open‐ended invitations in either condition, but there was a significant increase with age in the proportion of central information provided in response to open‐ended invitations. Published in 2008 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.