The Prevalence of Mental Health Problems in Men Arrested for Domestic Violence

The problem of male perpetrated intimate partner violence (IPV) is widespread. In an effort to identify risk factors for perpetrating IPV, researchers have examined mental health problems among perpetrators. However, the majority of research in this area has examined personality psychopathology and/or limited their investigation to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression. Thus, the present study examined self-reported Axis I psychopathology among men arrested for domestic violence (N?=?308). Results replicated past research showing high rates of PTSD and depression. In addition, the prevalence of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, social phobia, and alcohol and drug disorders were very high. All types of mental health problems were positively associated with aggression perpetration. Males meeting probable diagnostic classification reported significantly more frequent aggression than males not meeting diagnostic classification, even after controlling for social desirability. Directions for future research and implications of these findings are discussed.     

The impact of sex offender’s interpersonal style,treatment readiness and the therapeutic alliance on treatment gain

The impact of internal responsivity factors and therapeutic process variables on intra-individual within-treatment gain in sex offenders has received little empirical attention. This study examined how (1) internal responsivity factors, including treatment readiness and interpersonal style, and (2) therapy process variables, including the therapeutic alliance and the presence of ruptures in the therapeutic relationship, impacted intra-individual within-treatment gain. Participants comprised 71 sex offenders who participated in group-based sex offender treatment programmes in prison or the community. Results showed that offender hostile-dominance and the affective and interpersonal characteristics of psychopathy, as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version Factor 1 score, negatively impacted treatment gain. Pre-treatment readiness, client ratings of the therapeutic alliance and whether or not there were ruptures in the therapeutic relationship had no association with within-treatment gain. The strength of the therapeutic alliance later in treatment did not moderate the relationship between offender interpersonal style, or psychopathy, and treatment gain.     

Multilingual Sentiment Analysis: A New Approach to Measuring Conflict in Legislative Speeches

Comparative scholars of legislative politics continue to face the challenge of measuring a key theoretical concept: conflict at the level of legislative bills. We address this challenge with a multilingual sentiment‐based approach and show that such a measure can effectively capture different types of parliamentary conflict. We also demonstrate that an automated translation of the dictionary yields valid results and therefore greatly facilitates comparative work on legislatures. Our applications show that a sentiment approach recovers government‐opposition dynamics in various settings. The use of a simple, translatable sentiment dictionary opens up the possibility of studying legislative conflict in bill debates across languages and countries.     

Identity Orientation, Voice, and Judgments of Procedural Justice During Late Adolescence

This study focused on the relationship between voice and judgments of procedural justice in a sample of older adolescents and examined potential moderating and mediating influences of identity orientation (personal, social, and collective) and negative emotional response. Participants read 1 of 2 different family conflict scenarios (voice and no voice) asking them to imagine themselves in a disagreement with their parents over grades and financial support. In the voice condition, parents were described as making their decision after listening to the participant’s input. In the no voice condition, parents were described as making their decision without listening to the participant’s input. The adolescents then judged the fairness of the parental decisions and responded to questions concerning their identity orientation. Findings indicate that in addition to replicating the effect of voice in a novel context, the present investigation found moderating effects of personal identity orientation on procedural fairness judgments. Additionally, negative emotional response partially mediated the relationship between voice and global judgments of procedural fairness.Mark R. Fondacaro is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Associate Director of the Levin College of Law Center on Children and Families at the University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana University and his J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. His major research interests are ecological jurisprudence and the conceptualization and assessment of procedural justice in legal and extra-legal contexts including the family and the juvenile justice and health care systems.Eve M. Brank is an Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law & Society at the University of Florida. She received her Ph.D. in social psychology and her J.D. from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Her major research interests are parental responsibility laws and juvenile law issues.Jennifer Stuart is a graduate student in counseling psychology at the University of Florida. Her major research interests are adolescent development and delinquency prevention.Sara Villanueva-Abraham received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Florida. Her major research interests are adolescent development and parent-child relationships.Jennifer Luescher is a Forensic Psychology Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She received her Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of Florida. Her major research interests are in the areas of procedural justice, risk assessment and risk management, and mental health and juvenile justice policy.Penny S. McNatt is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of North Florida. She received her Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Florida. Her major research interests are in the area of intergroup relations.     

Nursing home quality-of-care cases after Mikes v. Straus

The quality of care rendered to residents of nursing facilities continues to gain attention from legislators, regulators, and the courts. Advocates for improvements in the quality of care by government-funded healthcare providers have identified the False Claims Act (FCA) as a potent tool. The Second Circuit decision in Mikes v. Straus might be viewed as a barrier to FCA claims against nursing facilities. Any impediment imposed by this decision, however, is limited by the facts of the case; the authors believe that carefully-crafted pleadings can enable litigants to rely upon the FCA in pursuing quality-of-care claims against nursing facilities.     

Dimensions of adolescent self-images

Using techniques derived from information theory, structural dimensions of adolescent self-images were studied. Within a sample of 58 adolescents, patients and normals, a variety of self-images were obtained using a specially designed Q-sort. The initial hypothesis predicted, on the basis of previous findings, that the idealized self-images would be more polarizedfor the patients. This hypothesis was only partiallyconfirmed. the self-idealization was significantly more polarized in the patient group. But the other two idealizations (those based on parental expectations) did not reflect a patient-normal difference. Rather, a significant three-way interaction of sex, age, and psychiatric status was found for these self-images, as well as for the current self-image. The consistent pattern in these three-way interactions was that late-adolescent boys polarized their self-images if they were in the normal group and had structurally complex (nonpolarized) self-images if they were in the patient group. The paper concludes by discussing the meaning of these findings. A framework for interpreting polarization is proposed and applied to the results. In addition, the notion of a Self-Image Profile is formulated and further elaborated. Finally, the relevance of these studies to other personality research and clinical observations is considered.This investigation was supported in part by a Research Scientist Development Award, Number K1-70-178, to S.T.H.Received M.A. in social anthropology from Harvard University and M.D. from Yale University. Candidate, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, 1969-. Currently studying self-image and cognitive development in populations of normal and psychiatrically impaired adolescents, from individual and group perspectives.Received M.D. from the University of Chicago; attended the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute (1952–1954) and the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute (1954–1961). Presently on staff of Washington School of Psychiatry and Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. Major research interests are adolescence and the family and psychoanalytic-oriented treatment in conjunction with a ward or in-patient milieu therapy. Specific interest is identity formation of adolescence.