Comments on Article by G. Leonard Burns et al.

No abstract available for this article.     

A Differentiated Legal Approach to the Effects of Spousal Abuse on Children

Summary

In the past decade judges have started to recognize the destructive effects of spousal violence on children, but too many judges and justice system professionals still fail to take adequate account of spousal abuse when dealing with child related issues. Courts need to take a “differentiated” approach to spousal abuse, one that recognizes its different forms, nature and effects on adults and children, with a continuum of responses ranging from ordinary visitation, through supervision of exchanges or visitation, to termination of visitation. Canada should enact legislation that explicitly recognizes spousal abuse as a factor in child related disputes, increase education about domestic violence for judges and other justice system professionals, and provide more support for services such as supervised visitations programs. While this article focuses on Canadian developments and case law, there are similar issues in other countries.     

Authenticity as a Mediator of the Relation Between Child Maltreatment and Negative Outcomes for College Women

The goal of this cross-sectional study was to determine if authenticity in relationships mediated the relation between early childhood maltreatment and negative outcomes (depression, low self-esteem, and traumatic symptoms). An ethnically diverse sample of female college students (N = 257, M age = 19.74) completed self-report questionnaires related to early childhood maltreatment, negative outcomes, and authenticity in relationships. Approximately 30% of participants experienced childhood maltreatment including physical maltreatment, emotional maltreatment, or both. Results from multiple mediation analyses indicated that, when controlling for physical maltreatment, authenticity in close relationships significantly partially mediated the relation between emotional maltreatment and depression, self-esteem, and traumatic symptoms (p < .05). However, when controlling for emotional maltreatment, physical maltreatment did not significantly predict any of the outcome variables, so physical maltreatment was not significantly mediated by authenticity in relationships. These results have important clinical implications for women who experience negative mental health outcomes as a result of childhood maltreatment.     

Childhood and Offense-Related Trauma in Young People Imprisoned in England and Wales for Murder and Other Acts of Serious Violence: A Descriptive Study

This study describes the prevalence of traumatic childhood experiences and the extent of trauma-related symptomatology in a group of incarcerated young men within the Young People’s prison estate in England. Semistructured interviews using the Trauma History Interview, the Intrusions and Ruminations Interview, and the Impact of Events Scale–Revised were conducted with 34 young men aged 15 to 17 years who had either murdered or committed serious violence and were serving indeterminate or long-term sentences. Many of the young men had experienced high levels of childhood trauma, and some were still experiencing trauma related to the committal of their offenses approximately 18 months after their offenses had been committed. This is an important finding in relation to the prevalence of unrecognized and untreated traumatized young prisoners.     

Predicting Prosocial Behavior Toward Sex-Trafficked Persons: The Roles of Empathy,Belief in a Just World,and Attitudes Toward Prostitution

Human trafficking has been identified as a global human rights violation. This study aimed to investigate the predictors of prosocial behaviors toward sex-trafficked persons. Participants were 223 undergraduates randomly assigned to read a vignette and answer follow-up questions along with measures of empathy, just world belief, attitudes toward prostitution, and proactive behavior. Empathy was highest for trafficked women, regardless of citizenship status. Trafficked foreign women received the highest empathy, and U.S. prostitutes received the least. Path analysis results indicate just world belief, beliefs about prostitutes, and family values relating to prostitution had direct effects on empathic concern; in turn, empathic concern had a direct effect on proactive behavior. Explanations for the results are discussed, along with educational and clinical implications.     

Contraries as an effective strategy in geometrical problem solving

A focused review of the literature on reasoning suggests that mechanisms based upon contraries are of fundamental importance in various abilities. At the same time, the importance of contraries in the human perceptual experience of space has been recently demonstrated in experimental studies. Solving geometry problems represents an interesting case as both reasoning abilities and the manipulation of perceptual–figural aspects are involved.

In this study we focus on perceptual changes in geometrical problem solving processes in order to understand whether a mental manipulation in terms of opposites might help. Four conditions were studied, two of which concerned the search for contraries as an implicit or explicit strategy.

Results demonstrated that contraries, when used explicitly in solution processes, constitute an effective heuristic: The number of correct solutions increased, less time was needed to find a solution and participants were oriented towards the use of perception-based solutions—not only were perceptual solutions more frequent, but also, more specifically, the number of correct perceptual solutions increased. These last results concerning perception-based solutions were found both when participants were advised about the usefulness of the strategy and when they were not advised. Differences concerning which aspects of a problem were focused on during the solution process also emerged.     

The logic sense: exploring the role of executive functioning in belief and logic-based judgments

Abstract

The Default Interventionist account suggests that by default, we often generate belief-based responses when reasoning and find it difficult to draw the logical inference. Recent research, however, shows that in some instances belief judgments take longer, are more prone to error and are more affected by cognitive load. One interpretation is that some logical inferences are available automatically and require intervention in order to respond according to beliefs. In two experiments, we investigate the effortful nature of belief judgments and the automaticity of logical inferences by increasing the inhibitory demands of the task. Participants were instructed to judge conclusion validity, believability and either font colour or font style, to increase the number of competing responses. Results showed that conflict more strongly affects judgments of believability than validity and when inhibitory demands are increased, the validity of an argument impacts more on belief judgments. These findings align with the new Parallel Processing model of belief bias.     

Organizational citizenship behaviour and employee's strain: Examining the buffering effects of leader support and participation in decision making

Investing in citizenship behaviours could entail personal costs for the employee. Specifically, we argue that OCB contributes to employee's strain above and beyond the impact of role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload. To study the buffering role of leader support and participation in decision making (PDM) on this relationship, we collected data from 457 employees at various organizations at different time points from multisources. The results supported our hypotheses: Higher levels of OCB were related to higher levels of employee's strain, above and beyond the impact of role overload, role ambiguity, and role conflict; and the relationship between OCB and strain was weaker for those enjoying a high degree of leader support or PDM.     

Measuring psychotherapy outcomes in routine practice: Examining Slovak versions of three commonly used outcome instruments

This study examined the Slovak mutations of three outcome measures for routine practice i.e. the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation – Outcome Measure (CORE-OM), the Outcome Questionnaire – 45 (OQ-45), the Outcome Rating Scale (ORS), and one control measure the Symptom Checklist 10 Revised (SCL-10R), with regard to their concordance or differences in outcome classification of pre-post change, when used by the same patients and when the criteria used for establishing recovery and improvement status are based on the same sample. Method: Non-clinical (252) and clinical (202) samples were used for the standardisation of all instruments. A portion of the clinical participants (N?=?140) completed all measures at the end of their treatment. Results: The CORE-OM, and the SCL-10R indicated a higher number of recovered and improved clients. With regard to the pre-post differences as expressed in the effect size, the CORE-OM showed the highest pre-post difference (pre-post effect size .98), followed by the ORS (.87), the SCL-10R (.83) and finally with the OQ-45 (.69). Conclusion: Even very similar instruments developed on the basis of similar theoretical conceptualisations and empirical findings may report different pre-post outcomes.     

Personality change following religious conversion: perceptions of converts and their close acquaintances

This study focuses on how converts and their close acquaintances perceive changes in personality characteristics after religious conversion and possible demographic influences of these perceptions. Sixty Slovakian respondents self-defined as having experienced conversions rated themselves twice on measures of Big Five personality traits, self-esteem, and meaningfulness in life. The first rating provided retrospective information concerning pre-conversion conditions and the second rating obtained data reflecting the convert's present self-understanding. In addition, every convert was rated on the same characteristics by someone who knew the person well during both pre- and post-conversion times. The convert and the rater both provided demographic information (age, education, religiosity, relationship to conversions and converts etc.). Analyses showed that the converts perceived several personality changes: neuroticism decreased while self-esteem, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion increased. They also reported a large increase in meaningfulness. Perceived changes were in part related to education level and age for converts, and to religiosity in both converts and close persons, suggesting a retrospective bias.