Interactive and Unique Risk Factors for Husbands' Emotional and Physical Abuse of Their Wives

Predisposing risk factors of husband to wife physical and emotional abusiveness were assessed in 175 community volunteer couples. Negative life events, marital dissatisfaction, attitudes regarding aggression, and employment status accounted for unique variance in the prediction of husbands' total abusiveness. Alcohol impairment, while not in itself a significant predictor, moderated the effects of life stress and marital dissatisfaction. Men reporting alcohol impairment, combined with high negative life events or with high marital dissatisfaction, exhibited greater abusiveness than predicted by the additive effects of these individual risk factors. Men exhibiting emotional abuse, compared to those without emotional abuse, scored higher on hostility and attitudes condoning aggression, whereas men exhibiting severe physical aggression, compared to those without severe physical aggression, reported more negative life events, more marital dissatisfaction, more hostility, and more exposure to abuse in their family of origin. The present data highlight the importance of variables that fluctuate over time, as well as the co-occurrence of such variables in understanding husband to wife abusiveness.     

Singapore 40 years on. Slow road to democracy

Singapore got a new Prime Minister in August 2004 - only the third one since 1959, and incidently the son of the first. The ruling People’s Action Party appears as firmly in power as ever before. However, under that apparent immobility, very significant changes have taken place since a decade. They did not affect (yet?) the core of the political system, and its compulsive authoritarianism, but otherwise the atmosphere is simply no more the same. Liberalization has especially affected culture and private life. But, since 2001, the new threat of terrorism has put into question the always delicate ethnic equilibrium. It could also slow or even stop the timid political opening.     

Can Reinforcement Induce Children to Falsely Incriminate Themselves?

This study examined whether reinforcement can induce children to falsely incriminate themselves. Ninety-nine children in kindergarten through third grade were questioned regarding the staged theft of a toy. Half received reinforcement for self-incriminating responses. Within 4 min reinforced children made 52% false admissions of guilty knowledge concerning the theft, and 30% false admissions of having witnessed it. Corresponding figures for controls were 36 and 10%. Twelve percent of children admitted to participating in the theft, but the effect of reinforcement was only marginally significant. The findings indicate that reinforcement can induce children to falsely implicate themselves in wrongdoing.     

FRAMING THE VICTIM

This paper analyses the (re-)presentation of rape complainant testimony on three Australian television programs which investigate the issue of football and sexual assault. The ways in which the testimony is framed—the use of others’ narrations, ‘expert’ testimony, and conventional film techniques such as music and editing—are critical in determining whether the woman's words are likely to be believed. Although the framing process is fraught, and complainants are frequently objectified and the authority of their words undermined, there is nevertheless great potential for the framing of a complainant's narrative to lend it truth-value and present it as believable.     

HUNTER‐GATHERER COLLABORATIVE PRACTICE

This article describes the development of a practice group based on a hunter‐gatherer model, with the mission of providing high quality collaborative divorce services, with an emphasis on protecting children and divorcing partners, and expanding access to middle‐ and lower‐income families. The practice group professional disciplines include law, mental health divorce coaching, co‐parent coaching, financial analysis, and case administration. These professionals have collectively associated their individual practices to address challenges facing their collaborative practices. With common purpose, the practice group builds skills, generates client base, nurtures trust, and lays a common knowledge base. Collaborative divorce teams formed from its members serve divorcing families with efficient, cost‐conscious, interest‐based negotiation processes that protect children and help parties productively move on with their lives.     

Child abuse by baby-sitters: An ecological-interactional interpretation

This study explored the social contexts in which physical abuse by baby-sitters occurred. This was accomplished through a content analysis of 98 founded case records of physical abuse committed by baby-sitters. In 70% of the case records there was evidence that sitters had a conflict with the victim prior to the abusive act. Children fighting with other children was the most common type of disturbance, followed by conflicts surrounding toilet training, children's continuous crying, disobedience, and rudeness. There was evidence that parents' explicit or implicit approval of baby-sitters' violence contributed to the child abuse in approximately one-quarter of the cases.This research was supported by a grant from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.     

必须有叙述者，抑或必要时才有叙述者

（至少）就文学叙事而言,我建议用下述方式来理解“叙述者”：一个内在于文本的语言位置,正在进行的叙述话语作为一个整体出现在这个位置上,话语所涉及的存在物、行动和事件也在这个位置上被标记出来。通过转喻转移和人格化的双重过程,“叙述者”这个术语被用来指代在这个位置上的假定占据者、叙述话语的假定生产者。叙述者是一个通过语言标记的、文本投射的、读者辨别的位置,这个位置上的占据者需主要从交际角色来看待,它不同于真实世界中有血有肉的（或计算机的）文本生产者。本文简要描述了八个不同的一般因素（语言学的,哲学的,方法论的和一般文学理论的）,这些因素能够促使叙事学家判断叙述者在其文学叙事的一般模式中是不可或缺的一个种类/实例,还只是一个可选元素。在文章结尾,本文论述了近期两个试图规避这个选择的理论行动：重新描绘叙事学家的研究对象范畴或重新界定叙述者概念自身的地位。