From dynamic risk factors to causal processes: a methodological framework

ABSTRACT

It is becoming increasingly apparent that dynamic risk factors are unable to function as explanations of offending because they are composite constructs, which contain a mixture of putative causes, states of affairs, and problematic cognitive, affective, behavioural and social states associated with crime. In this paper we draw from psychopathology research and theory on the conception and classification of mental disorders to develop the Dynamic Risk Research Framework (DRRF). In our opinion, the assumptions and methodological tool associated with this framework can better focus research into the causes of offending by making use of the information provided by dynamic risk factors. A conceptual framework such as the DRRF can arguably translate this valuable information into deep, coherent explanations, and ultimately, more streamlined and precise intervention strategies.     

The Psychological Impact of Previous Victimization: Examining the “Abuse Defense” in a Sample of Harassment Litigants

The present study examines the impact of previous sexual victimization on emotional distress in a sample of women (n?=?492) involved in a sexual harassment class action lawsuit. Sexual harassment was found to predict symptoms of PTSD and general symptoms of anxiety, over and above the effects of previous victimization and other relevant personal variables; it also predicted depression and self-esteem, although previous victimization had a stronger impact on these variables than did sexual harassment. The effects of previous victimization and sexual harassment on emotional distress appeared to be independent and cumulative. The legal and clinical relevance of these findings are discussed.     

Exploring University Mission-Identity Perceptions: Predictors of Faith Maturity

Two studies examined mission-identity perceptions as predictors of faith maturity among students at a faith-based university. Study 1 (n = 304; 222 women, 82 men) assessed the relationships among students in the general student population. Study 2 was a replication of Study 1, but included students involved with a campus ministry organization (n = 94; 69 women, 25 men). In Study 1, innovative and inclusive mission-identity perceptions were significant, positive predictors of vertical and horizontal faith maturity. The findings of Study 2 were consistent with those of Study 1, with one exception. Specifically, no evidence of a relationship between mission-identity perceptions (innovative and inclusive) and horizontal faith maturity was found in Study 2. Results may offer insight into the factors that influence students' spiritual development at faith-based universities.     

Competition,the Global Crisis,and Alternatives to Neoliberal Capitalism: A Critical Engagement with Anarchism

Since the mid-1980s, and particularly throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, the imperative of capitalist competition has become a totalizing and all-pervasive logic expanding to ever more social domains and geographical areas around the world. Sustained by neoliberal competition regulation and other regulatory provisions, excessive competition (over-competition) in the process of capital accumulation has become a major global force with highly detrimental social and environmental downsides. From the vantage point of a historical materialist perspective, the article provides an explanatory critique of capitalist competition and the atomistic and reductionist social scientific precepts that serve to legitimize the neoliberal type of competition regulation. By critically engaging with principles and values central to anarchism, such as equity, solidarity, cooperation, mutual aid, and environmental sustainability, the article seeks to outline an alternative vision to the ideas and social practices that have sustained the existing competition order thus far.     

In response to Paul Stange's “deconstruction as disempowerment: New orientalisms of Java”

Abstract

The gist of Stange's argument is that Javanists, including myself, have done a disservice to both scholarship and our Javanese informants by failing to pay as much attention as we should to the mystical stream in Javanese culture. Stange criticizes us for reading into statements about mysticism such issues as language ideology, status, and power, rather than taking those statements at their face value. According to Stange, it is not necessary to be a practicing mystic to appreciate Javanese mysticism and its pervasive role in Javanese culture—it suffices to acknowledge the importance of these topics and record mystical Javanese commentary with due respect for its sophistication and authority. Yet were we truly open to what others can reveal to us, Stange goes on to suggest, we would entertain the possibility that mysticism might teach us something important about ourselves and offers us an escape from postmodernist nihilism.     

Automatic Encoding of Ambiguous Child Behavior in High and Low Risk for Child Physical Abuse Parents

Recent theory and research suggest that physically abusive parenting behavior might be understood as originating from: 1) greater accessibility of hostile/negative schema, and/or 2) lower accessibility of benign/positive schema. This study examined whether parents at high and low risk for child physical abuse (CPA) differed in the extent to which they spontaneously encoded ambiguous caregiving contexts in negative versus positive terms. Twenty-five high and forty-one low risk for CPA parents were asked to memorize a set of sentences that described ambiguous caregiving situations. After a brief delay, participants were asked to recall the sentences. During recall, cues were given (e.g., negative and positive words) to facilitate recall. According to the cued-recall paradigm, to the extent that recall was facilitated by negative/positive cues, it was inferred that negative/positive meaning was activated when the ambiguous sentences were encoded. Although all parents tended to recall more information in response to negative relative to positive cues, the influence of cue type on recall was greater for high CPA risk parents. That is, high, compared to low, CPA risk parents obtained significantly higher recall difference scores (M = 4.6 versus M = 2.3); with higher recall difference scores indicating greater recall in response to negative relative to positive cues. Present findings are consistent with the proposition that high and low CPA risk parents differ in how they spontaneously encode information in ambiguous caregiving contexts.     

The Relationship between Human Needs and Criminogenic Needs

Abstract

Precipitators are personal attributes enhancing a person's likelihood of becoming criminally victimized. The present experiment focuses on walking style synchrony as a nonverbal determinant of differential perceptions. Findings suggest that walking styles associated with a lack of interactional synchrony - a lack of organized movement, a lack of ‘wholeness’, a lack of flowing motion - result in higher ratings of robbery potential and in lower ratings of perceived self-confidence of a target relative to more synchronous walking styles. Analyses also suggest that high criminal involvement is associated with more easily construing situations as ‘opportunistic’. Some implications for assertiveness and self-defense training programs are discussed.