The impact of sexual assault history and relationship context on appraisal of and responses to acquaintance sexual assault risk

Although a major predictor of sexual victimization is previous victimization, the mechanism underlying this effect is not well understood. Sexual assault history's impact on appraisal of and responses to sexual assault risk was examined in an experimental analog study. Intimacy with perpetrator was also examined as a potential contributor to appraisal and responses. Young women varying in sexual assault history were randomly assigned to receive a scenario in which type of perpetrator was manipulated (someone just met, friend, date, boyfriend). Respondents appraised the man's actions as sexual interest or assault and indicated intentions to respond (resistance and nonresistance). Sexual assault history did not directly influence appraisal or intended responses but had modest indirect effects on resistance via sexual assertiveness. The primary influence on appraisal and responses was perpetrator intimacy. Women facing advances within a more intimate relationship were less likely to appraise those advances as threatening and less likely to resist.     

Depressive disorders and depressive personality traits in offspring aged 10–17 of bipolar and of normal parents

Sixty proband children (P) of bipolar I parents and 60 control children of normal parents (C), in the age range 10–17, were investigated clinically by K-SADS-E interview and psychologically by personality inventories. In the global psychopathology rate of 63% in P children and 25% in C children, depressive disorders reached 8% in P children and 0% in C children, while depressive personality traits reached 22% in P children and 15% in C children. Cluster analysis evidenced a variety of personality structures, but 3 clusters were striking: a cluster characterized by high anxiety and depressive reactivity (17% P and 5% C children), a cluster characterized by high depressive reactivity and emotional instability (5% P children), and a hyperthymic cluster (5 % P children). Sixty-seven percent of P children and 36% of C children showed deviant personality traits (p<.01).     

The Banner of Upright Swiss Liberty

The liberty of the Swiss has not been sufficiently appreciated,by Europeans, by federalists, and even by foreign lovers ofliberty who chose to live there, such as Gibbon. In his Bannerof the Upright Seven, Gottfried Keller of Zürich uncoversthe basis of Swiss federalism, displays the liberty it promotes,savors the well-being it provides, and yet shows how it woulddestroy it if its basis were forgotten. And he does so festively.     

Working with street children

In September 1990 we became involved with the Centre for the Defence of the Child (CDM) in Brazil, hoping to participate in a survey of the lives of street children that was being conducted by the group. The CDM, a branch of its parent organisation The Young Street Vendors' Association, takes on individual cases of street children, providing crisis management with social, psychological, and legal support. It was decided to start a project of regularly taking a team of staff on to the streets and into the areas where the street children were, with the aim of providing a programme of support and self-esteem building, principally for the street girls. This project proved a success with the street children and remains so following our departure from Brazil.     

Perspective and procedural justice: Attorney and litigant evaluations of court procedures

A comparison of the procedural justice judgments of attorneys and those of lay people judging the same procedures offers an opportunity to generate new information on what factors affect judgments of fairness. In a survey of reactions to conventional and innovative procedures in a United States district court, attorneys and lay people involved in tort and contract cases were asked to judge the overall fairness of court procedures and the fairness of specific procedures used in arbitration hearings. The respondents were also asked for their judgments concerning the favorability of the procedure's outcome, the opportunity to have the case heard and decided by an impartial third party, and their side's control over what happened in the case, all of which are factors found in previous studies to affect procedural fairness judgments. The results showed that, while attorneys gave higher overall fairness ratings than did litigants, the difference was not affected by the procedure assigned to the case. In addition, attorneys and litigants appeared to use the same standards to evaluate the fairness of procedures, although they disagreed about where the procedures they experienced fell on these dimensions. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.     

Two models of formal social control

In recent years there has been an increasing concern with the link between judicial decisions and the socio-political attributes of the environment in which courts function. Little attention has been paid to the link between attorneys' advice and that same court environment. This study fills the gap.In this paper two models of formal social control are developed—a legalist and a decentralized model. The effect of this environmental factor on attorneys' forum advice is examined.Forum advice data were collected on 143 attorneys in Maryland, Louisiana, and Texas. The data were analyzed using analysis of variance for repeated measures. It was found that a state's adopted model of formal social control does affect attorneys' judge-jury advice. Attorneys in legalist states are more likely to advise the judge trial than are attorneys in decentralized states. This effect was mediated, however, by the race of the client, the racial composition of the community in which the case was to be heard, and the seriousness of the offense. With increasing levels of legalism, attorneys representing blacks based their judge-jury advice on both the seriousness of the offense and the racial composition of the community in which the case is to be heard. With increasing levels of legalism, attorneys of white clients based their forum advice solely on the seriousness of the offense.