The Public as a Limit to Technology Transfer: The Influence of Knowledge and Beliefs in Attitudes towards Biotechnology in the UK

Transferring knowledge on new biotechnology applications in the European Union is restricted by limited public support. Explanations for this limited support lead us to examine the influence of knowledge and beliefs in shifting attitudes towards the uncertain consequences of unknown technologies. In addition, this paper looks at the role of perceptions of uncertainty as well as information channels. We denote as “knowledgeable” those attitudes that are held by informed individuals and as “rational irrational” those attitudes purely reflecting political and moral beliefs. The empirical analysis employs data from a UK sample of the 1999 Eurobarometer Survey 52.1. Results suggest that improving knowledge systematically raises individual support for clinical biotech applications such as animal cloning, while attitudes towards market-oriented biotech such as GM food remain systematically unaltered. When controlling for knowledge, significant factors within information channels were gender, perceptions of risk and, in certain applications, religiosity. Findings also support the hypothesis that knowledge driven attitudes arise from those applications where knowledge is shifted by perceived experience and thus perceived information costs are small. An erratum to this article is available at .     

In Search of Respect: Examining Arrestee Satisfaction with Police

Recent research suggests that attitudes toward police hinge upon the procedures officers use in their interactions with the public. Using survey data collected from a sample of adults arrested and booked into a local jail in Washington County, Arkansas, this paper examines some of the factors that influence arrestees’ satisfaction with police. Results reveal that the most important factor influencing arrestees’ opinions of police was their belief in the benevolence of police actions, followed by their perceptions of the effectiveness of police, whether or not their arresting officer treated them with respect, racial group membership, and total household income. These findings lend support to the “normative” or “process-based” model of policing. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for police and jail administrators.     

Mothers’ Attitudes Toward Corporal Punishment of Children in Qazvin-Iran

The aim of this study was to assess mothers’ attitudes toward Corporal Punishment (CP) of children in Iran. A qualitative study was carried out using focus group discussions. Five sessions were held among 42 participants (30 mothers and 12 caregivers). Results indicated that 80% of participants used CP to bring up their children; 70 % did not know the meaning, predisposing factors, and manifestations of child abuse, and more than 50 % did not know the complications resulting from CP and the ways of preventing. Their attitude toward CP was that the use of CP was sometimes necessary to bring up their children while their information about predisposing factors and complications of child abuse might be minimal. The findings have been used in providing an educational package with the topics of parenting skills in order to decrease child abuse that has been resulted by parents.     

Global and Neighborhood Attitudes Toward the Police: Differentiation by Race,Ethnicity and Type of Contact

This study focused on a series of hypotheses regarding residents’ attitudes toward the police: (1) residents’ attitudes toward the police are better represented by a two-dimensional model that differentiates global perceptions of the police from assessments of the police in the respondents’ neighborhood; (2) the structure of residents’ attitudes toward the police is different for Whites, African Americans, and Latinos; (3) direct experiences with the police in the respondents’ neighborhood will be more strongly associated with the respondents’ assessment of police in their neighborhood than global perceptions of the police; and (4) the influence of direct experiences with the police will be stronger for African Americans and Latinos than for Whites. Results based on structural equation modeling offer strong support for the need to differentiate between global and neighborhood perceptions of the police. The underlining measurement structure of attitudes toward the police was similar for Whites, African Americans, and Latinos. However, the relationship between global and neighborhood attitudes was stronger for African Americans and Latinos. Negative contact with the police was associated with both negative global and neighborhood assessments of the police. Non-negative contact was associated with positive neighborhood perceptions of the police; however, only when it occurred within the neighborhood. The influence of direct experiences with the police (both inside and outside the neighborhood) was similar for Whites, African Americans, and Latinos.     

A comparative study of the attitudes of Urban,Suburban and Rural Police Officers in New Jersey regarding the use of force

This article examines the attitudes of sample populations of urban, suburban and rural police officers in New Jersey in regard to a hypothetical use of force scenario. The aim of the study is to identify similarities and differences in the perceptions of officers who are faced with the same type of hypothetical situations but who are exposed to different training, procedural and environmental factors. Police officers in the United States receive different types of training in each state that might influence their attitudes towards the use of force. A pilot study was conducted comparing two urban police departments from two different states and showed some differences in the attitudes of the surveyed officers. To further explore these differences, a more refined look at three police departments in one state (New Jersey) was conducted as part of a doctoral dissertation of the lead author. Research questions are aimed at identifying the differences in the frameworks for the justification of force based on a host of variables. The research questions stipulated that there will be some significant differences in attitudes towards the use of force by the officers, based on physical location of the communities they police. The findings of the study identified additional factors that might influence the officers’ attitudes. Twelve focus groups, four at each of the sites, were analyzed and it appears that there may be a geographic and demographic influence on how the officers respond to the scenario.     

Professional attitudes regarding treatment and punishment of incest: Comparing police,child welfare,and community mental health

Brief case histories involving incest were presented to police officers, child welfare workers, and community mental health practitioners in a rural area in Canada. Intervention priorities involving “treatment versus punishment” were assessed across the three professional groups for each specific case vignette. Attitudes were assessed on three factors: perpetrator mentally ill rather than criminal, view regarding treatment of victims and mothers, and support for court mandated treatment. Police and community mental health practitioners had significantly different attitudes as to whether perpetrators of child sexual abuse should be viewed more as criminals or as mentally disturbed. Both mental health and child welfare staff differed significantly from police with a less punitive view towards victims and their mothers. All three profressional groups showed no difference in their modest endorsement of the use of mandated treatment by the courts. Gender was not found to influence response to case vignettes.     

Relocation Issues in Child Custody Evaluations: A Survey of Professionals

We report on a sample of 90 child custody evaluators in the United States, who completed an online questionnaire on their attitudes and beliefs in child custody relocation cases. Findings indicated that the vast majority of participants relied on relevant professional literature and utilized a relocation risk assessment forensic model. Participants found many risk, protective, and specific relocation factors important, but the triad of past parental involvement, support for the other parent, and child's age were afforded the most importance. Participants also reported that the moving parents sought relocation for educational/vocational reasons, to receive support of their extended family, or to remarry, while the nonmoving party most commonly opposed relocation due to fears of interference/damage to the nonmoving parent–child relationship, restrictive gatekeeping, and alienation. A common trend among participants was concerns over the possible detrimental impact of any relocation on the nonmoving parent–child relationship and quality of co‐parenting. The vast majority of participants reported that they made specific recommendations to the court about relocation, and the court agreed with their recommendation the overwhelming majority of the time. We discuss Implications of the findings as well as areas needing further research.     

The influence of personal history of abuse and gender on clinicians' judgments of child abuse

Two extra-legal factors were examined for their influence on professionals' decisions to report child abuse: having been abused as a child oneself, and the gender of the child, the parent, and the professional. One hundred and one men and women who worked regularly with children in mental health settings rated a series of scenarios presented as cases from a protective service agency. Participants made several judgments regarding the case including the severity of the parent's behavior, the likely effect on the child, whether the situation was abusive, and whether the case should be reported to a social service agency. Despite some interpretive limitations, the results generally support the hypothesis that extra-legal factors influence the perceptions of professionals who are mandated to report a suspected incident of abuse.     

How pedophilic men think about adult-child sex: effects of child gender and physical maturity

To date, very little research has tackled whether pedophilic men’s attitude towards adult–child sex depends on characteristics of the adult or the child involved in such acts. This study examines the effect of the child’s gender (male vs. female) and physical maturity (pre-pubescent vs. early pubescent) on the moral evaluation of apparently noncoercive adult–child sex in a 2?×?2 factorial online vignette experiment. One hundred eighty-three English-speaking pedophilic men rated their agreement with moral arguments on the Immoral Sex Scale, as well as whether they believed this behavior to be typical for a child. The results revealed considerable inter-individual differences, with about one third showing restrictive moral attitudes. Contrary to our expectations, gender and physical maturity neither affected the perceived morality of the sexual act, nor beliefs about the representativeness of the child’s behavior. However, when controlling for confounds, pedophilic men believed that boys were more likely to willingly engage in adult–child sex. Furthermore, participants with stronger liberal attitudes were found to be more likely to defend the sexual act, as were participants with a preferential interest in pre-pubescents. There was no link between attitudes towards adult–child sex and sexual offending, replicating the non-associations reported in previous community surveys.     

The genuine victim and prosecutors’ charging decisions in sexual assault cases

This study examined the effect of victim characteristics and evidence factors on prosecutors’ decisions to file charges in sexual assault cases. Social scientists and legal scholars argue that sexual assault case processing decisions are affected by stereotypes of real rapes and genuine victims. They assert that complainants whose backgrounds and behavior conform to the image of a genuine victim will be taken more seriously, and their allegations treated more seriously, than complainants whose backgrounds and behavior are at odds with this image. We used a sample of arrests for sexual assault made by the Detroit Police Department in 1989 to test these assertions. We combined six victim characteristics to create a genuine victim scale, and we examined the effect of this scale, as well as a number of evidence factors, on prosecutors’ charging decisions. We performed separate analyses on cases with child victims and cases with adolescent or adult victims. We found that the genuine victim scale did not influence charging decisions in cases with child victims, but was theonly significant predictor in cases involving adolescent or adult victims. In contrast, none of the four evidence factors affected charging in cases with adult victims, and only one of these factors was related to charging in cases involving children. These findings suggest that prosecutors attempt to avoid uncertainty by screening out sexual assault cases unlikely to result in a conviction because of questions about the victim’s character, the victim’s behavior, and the victim’s credibility. This paper is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. SES-9010826. Points of view are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the National Science Foundataion.     

Family and social factors associated with substantiation of child abuse and neglect reports

One hundred fifty-nine families who were reported for child abuse or neglect to a country social services agency in a single fiscal year were studied empirically to test the ecological model of child abuse and neglect. Several family and social factors were studied. Only two, size of family and stage in family developmental cycle, were significantly associated with an increased risk of substantiation of the report. Two potential sources of social support, the use of regular child care and the presence of an extended family member, were tested for their effect on substantiation in those cases where risk factors such as the two mentioned above and combinations of risk factors such as single parenthood and unemployed head of household were associated with higher rates of substantiation. In every case, these two examples of social support reduced the substantiation rate. The influence of the use of regular child care was especially strong in mitigating the effect of the family and social risk factors.     

Patterns of Risk and Protective Factors in the Intergenerational Cycle of Maltreatment

This study investigates the continuation and discontinuation of the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment within the first 13 months of the child’s life. Differences in risk factors and parenting styles between families who initiate (Initiators), maintain (Maintainers) or break (Cycle Breakers) the intergenerational cycle of child maltreatment are explored in comparison to control families (Controls). One hundred and three Health Visitors were trained to assess risk factors and parenting styles of 4,351 families, at both 4–6 weeks and 3–5 months after birth. Maintainers, Initiators and Cycle Breakers had a significantly higher prevalence for the majority of risk factors and poor parenting styles than Controls. Protective factors of financial solvency and social support distinguished Cycle Breakers from Maintainers and Initiators. Therefore, it is the presence of protective factors that distinguish Cycle Breakers from families who were referred to Child Protection professionals in the first year after birth. A conceptual, hierarchical model that considers history of abuse, risk and protective factors, in turn, is proposed to assess families for the potential of child maltreatment.     

Perceived social support and competence in abused children: A longitudinal perspective

The stress-social support-psychological well-being model and the social network theory of child development were used to examine the impact of child abuse and maternal perceptions of social support and competence on child perceptions of social support and competence at two points in time. The influence of child social support on child competence was also assessed. The sample consisted of 165 abused children and their mothers and a matched comparison group of 169 nonabused children and their mothers. As a source of stress, abuse had no significant independent effects on children's perceptions of social support and competence at either time period. The strongest predictors of children's views of their competence were perceived support from mothers, peers, and teachers. The findings underscore the importance of social support for the psychological well-being of children.     

Examining Factors Co-Existing with Interpersonal Violence in Lesbian Relationships

Interpersonal violence within lesbian relationships is a significant yet understudied problem. Women attending a gay pride festival in Atlanta, GA, were asked to complete a survey concerning same-sex interpersonal violence. Women who reported being in a current or previous same-sex partner relationship were included in the analyses (N = 226). Factors that occurred in the context of interpersonal violence were investigated: substance use, HIV/STI risk behaviors, barriers to reporting abuse, and attitudes inhibiting seeking of social support. In addition, the survey assessed relationship-related power dynamics. Results of multivariate analyses support the hypotheses that power imbalance and inequality when making sex-related decisions within women’s same-sex relationships are associated with interpersonal violence. Further findings suggested that a combination of factors must be considered when dealing with and reducing the risk for violence in same-sex relationships.     

Effect of Psychopathy, Abuse, and Ethnicity on Juvenile Probation Officers’ Decision-Making and Supervision Strategies

Probation officers exercise substantial discretion in their daily work with troubled and troubling juvenile offenders. In this experiment, we examine the effect of psychopathic features, child abuse, and ethnicity on 204 officers’ expectancies of, recommendations for, and approach to supervising, juvenile offenders. The results indicate that officers (a) have decision-making and supervision approaches that are affected by a youth’s psychopathic traits and history of child abuse—but not ethnicity; (b) view both abused youth and psychopathic youth as highly challenging cases on a path toward adult criminality; and (c) have greater hope and sympathy for abused youth than psychopathic youth. For abused youth, officers are likely to recommend psychological services and “go the extra mile” by providing greater support, referrals, and networking than is typical for their caseload. For psychopathic youth, officers expect poor treatment outcomes and are” extra strict,” enforcing rules that typically are not enforced for others on their caseload.     

Parenting Stress,Parenting Behavior,and Children’s Adjustment in Families Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence

Children exposed to intimate partner violence are known to experience a number of negative outcomes, including behavioral and emotional problems; however, possible mechanisms accounting for this relationship are unclear. There is considerable evidence that parenting stress has a direct effect on child adjustment problems and on parenting behaviors; parenting behaviors, in turn, have been repeatedly shown to be related to child outcomes. The hypothesis that parenting mediates the relationship between parenting stress and child behavioral and emotional problems according to Abidin’s (Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 21:407–412, 1992) model was tested in a sample of 190 battered women and their 4-to12-year-old children. No support for mediation was found for either mother- or child-reported outcomes. Parenting stress had a strong direct effect on child behavioral and emotional problems. These findings have implications for the viability of Abidin’s model, as well as for interventions with battered women that address parenting stress. The authors would like to thank the women, children, and staff at the shelters for battered women who participated in this study.     

When Tokens Matter

Tokens, or low levels of minority or female representatives in state legislatures, have been studied with respect to their perceptions of self‐efficacy and political attitudes but not with respect to their actual influence on the passage of public policy. This paper uses state‐level data from the child support program between the years 1976–84 to measure the influence of women tokens on the policy process. Using ordered probit models, I explore policy adoption under three configurations: (1) a test of the independent impact of tokens, (2) a dynamic test of the differential impact of tokens and nontokens to analyze potential backlash effects and the potential diffusion of policy preferences, and (3) an interactive test on the potential for tokens to form coalitions. My analysis strongly suggests that tokens make a policy difference independently and to a greater extent than when they are on the cusp of becoming nontokens, but I found less support for the idea that tokens successfully form coalitions to achieve specific policy goals.     

The Co-occurrence of Child and Intimate Partner Maltreatment in the Family: Characteristics of the Violent Perpetrators

This study considers the characteristics associated with mothers and fathers who maltreat their child and each other in comparison to parents who only maltreat their child. One hundred and sixty-two parents who had allegations of child maltreatment made against them were considered. The sample consisted of 43 fathers (Paternal Family—PF) and 23 mothers (Maternal Family—MF) who perpetrated both partner and child maltreatment, together with 23 fathers (Paternal Child—PC) and 26 mothers (Maternal Child—MC) who perpetrated child maltreatment only. In addition, 2 fathers (Paternal Victim—PV) and 23 mothers (Maternal Victim—MV) were victims of intimate partner maltreatment and perpetrators of child maltreatment and 7 fathers (Paternal Non-abusive Carer—PNC) and 15 mothers (Maternal Non-abusive Carer—MNC) did not maltreat the child but lived with an individual who did. Within their family unit, 40.7% of parents perpetrated both intimate partner and child maltreatment. However, fathers were significantly more likely to maltreat both their partner and child than mothers and mothers were significantly more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence than fathers. PF fathers conducted the highest amount of physical and/or sexual child maltreatment while MC and MV mothers perpetrated the highest amount of child neglect. Few significant differences between mothers were found. PF fathers had significantly more factors associated with development of a criminogenic lifestyle than PC fathers. Marked sex differences were demonstrated with PF fathers demonstrating significantly more antisocial characteristics, less mental health problems and fewer feelings of isolation than MF mothers. MC mothers had significantly more childhood abuse, mental health problems, parenting risk factors and were significantly more likely to be biologically related to the child than PC fathers. This study suggests that violent families should be assessed and treated in a holistic manner, considering the effects of partner violence upon all family members, rather than exclusively intervening with the violent man. Requests for reprints should be sent to Louise Dixon, Center for Forensic and Family Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, United Kingdom.     

Developmental Pathways into Social and Sexual Deviance

Path analysis was used to assess the contribution of four exogenous developmental variables (sexual abuse, physical abuse, exposure to violence, exposure to pornography—each occurring prior to age 13) and four personality constructs (“psychopathic and antagonistic attitudes,” “psychosocial deficits,” “pedophilia,” “hostile masculinity”) to the prediction of non-sexual delinquency and number of male child victims in a sample of 256 adolescent males with a history of “hands-on” sexual offending. “Psychosocial deficits” was found to partially mediate the effects of the exogenous variables on both outcomes. Exposure to violence both directly, and indirectly through “psychopathic and antagonistic attitudes,” contributed to the prediction of non-sexual delinquency. Sexual abuse by a male directly, and indirectly through “hostile masculinity” and “pedophila”, contributed to prediction of number of male child victims. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Race and decision making within juvenile justice: The importance of context

Previous tests of the influence of race on decision making within juvenile justice proceedings have traditionally focused on case-level variables and/or macrolevel factors that characterize the jurisdictions under study. Often excluded are measures of the attitudinal context within which decision making occurs. Using a revised conflict perspective that incorporates the role of racial stereotyping, hypotheses are developed centering on racial differences in case processing decisions within four midwest jurisdictions. Attitudes of juvenile court officials toward the punitiveness of the juvenile court and perceptions regarding differences between the behavior and attitudes of whites and those of African Americans are included in additive and race interactive models of five decision-making stages. Results indicate both lenient and harsh treatment of African Americans compared to whites. Hypotheses regarding racial stereotyping in the decision-making process receive some support and the discussion focuses on how inconsistent racial effects may be a function of variation in structural “coupling” across system decision points.