Perpetrator programmes for partner violence: Are they based on ideology or evidence?

Purpose. The ideologically based view of intimate partner violence has traditionally influenced policy and practice in modern western nations and dominated cross‐national research and practice. This review considers the validity of the position statement of a British organization responsible for accrediting many male perpetrator programmes in the statutory, voluntary, and private sector as an example of this ideological influence. Method. The position statement, informed by the patriarchal view of partner violence, is evaluated using empirical evidence from various branches of the social sciences, including psychology, that have not been guided by the patriarchal view. Results. Overwhelming empirical evidence is presented, which refutes ideologically driven assumptions that have been put forward to guide current practice and evaluation of it. Conclusions. This review highlights the need to investigate intimate partner violence from a scientific and gender‐inclusive perspective. The implications for psychological practice are discussed.     

Ego identity status and expressive writing among high school and college students

Several studies were conducted to assess the relationship between expressive writing (poetry writing and journal keeping) and ego identity development among high school and college students. In three independent comparisons, poetry writers were more likely than students not writing poetry to have previously resolved identity crises (i.e., to be in the identity achiever status). There were also indications that students who had never written poetry were more likely to be in the foreclosure and identity diffusion statuses. No differences in identity development were found between students keeping personal journals and those who had not kept journals. A comparison was made of the themes most frequently chosen as the subject for each type of expressive writing and the functions such writings were believed to be serving. Possible explanations for why poetry writing, but not journal keeping, is related to ego identity formation are discussed.Received his Ph.D. from State University of New York at Buffalo. Research interests include psychosocial development during adolescence, youth, and adulthood and techniques for resolving identity crises.Research interests include identity development in early and midadolescence and the choice of models.     

Courting the Women’s Vote: The Emotional,Cognitive, and Persuasive Effects of Gender-Based Appeals in Campaign Advertisements

Political Behavior - In this paper, we examine the ways in which citizens emotionally react to and cognitively process campaign advertisements that contain group-based appeals. Specifically, we...     

The association of distress and denial of responsibility with maladaptive personality traits and self‐esteem in offenders

This study aimed to examine the relationship of offenders' distress and responsibility with maladaptive personality traits, self‐esteem, and offence‐type. It also further validated the Distress and Responsibility Scale (DRS; Xuereb et al., 2009a, Pers. Individ. Diff., 46, 465). A new sub‐scale measuring social desirability was included and assessed in the DRS. Maladaptive personality traits and self‐esteem were measured in relation to the following predictions: (1) that maladaptive personality traits would positively correlate with distress (2) that self‐esteem would negatively correlate with distress and acknowledging responsibility. The sample was 405 male sexual, violent, and general offenders from a UK prison. Participants anonymously completed a questionnaire measuring the variables under investigation. The factor‐structure of the DRS was confirmed via Confirmatory Factor Analysis after minor changes. No significant differences in distress and denial of responsibility were found between sexual, violent, and general offenders. Maladaptive personality traits positively correlated with chronic and offence‐related distress, chronic self‐blame, and minimization of offence harm. Chronic and offence‐related distress and responsibility negatively related to self‐esteem. The study concludes that the DRS has reached stability, and that the social desirability scale increases the measure's validity. Assessment and treatment for offence‐related distress and denial of responsibility should be offered to all offence groups. Offenders would benefit from structured interventions to manage difficulties associated with maladaptive personality traits, including chronic distress and self‐blame. Finally, it was concluded that self‐esteem might serve a self‐defensive function for offenders.     

Context Effects in Forensic Entomology and Use of Sequential Unmasking in Casework

Context effects are pervasive in forensic science, and are being recognized by a growing number of disciplines as a threat to objectivity. Cognitive processes can be affected by extraneous context information, and many proactive scientists are therefore introducing context‐minimizing systems into their laboratories. Forensic entomologists are also subject to context effects, both in the processes they undertake (e.g., evidence collection) and decisions they make (e.g., whether an invertebrate taxon is found in a certain geographic area). We stratify the risk of bias into low, medium, and high for the decisions and processes undertaken by forensic entomologists, and propose that knowledge of the time the deceased was last seen alive is the most potentially biasing piece of information for forensic entomologists. Sequential unmasking is identified as the best system for minimizing context information, illustrated with the results of a casework trial (n = 19) using this approach in Victoria, Australia.     

Comparative Analysis of Insect Succession Data from Victoria (Australia) Using Summary Statistics versus Preceding Mean Ambient Temperature Models

Minimum postmortem interval (mPMI) can be estimated with preceding mean ambient temperature models that predict carrion taxon pre‐appearance interval. But accuracy has not been compared with using summary statistics (mean ± SD of taxon arrival/departure day, range, 95% CI). This study collected succession data from ten experimental and five control (infrequently sampled) pig carcasses over two summers (n = 2 experimental, n = 1 control per placement date). Linear and exponential preceding mean ambient temperature models for appearance and departure times were constructed for 17 taxa/developmental stages. There was minimal difference in linear or exponential model success, although arrival models were more often significant: 65% of linear arrival (r² = 0.09–0.79) and exponential arrival models (r² = 0.05–81.0) were significant, and 35% of linear departure (r² = 0.0–0.71) and exponential departure models (r² = 0.0–0.72) were significant. Performance of models and summary statistics for estimating mPMI was compared in two forensic cases. Only summary statistics produced accurate mPMI estimates.     

Changes in the lipid composition of latent fingerprint residue with time after deposition on a surface

The work described in this report was focused on generating increased knowledge of fingerprint chemistry, particularly the composition of a latent fingerprint at the time it is deposited, and the chemical changes in lipid components that occur over time. Fingerprints from five male donors (aged 25-34 years) were collected and aged under controlled conditions. The prints were then sampled at set intervals, solvent extracted with dichloromethane, co-derivatized with MSTFA and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). It was shown that there was loss of squalene from prints stored in the light or in the dark. Loss was more rapid in the light, with squalene in prints from some donors not detected after 9 days storage. For these same donors, squalene was still detected after 33 days storage in the dark, but at much lower levels than in fresh prints. For saturated fatty acids (tetradecanoic, palmitic and stearic acid) there was a trend towards an increase in levels of these substances during storage (up to about 20 days) followed by a decrease back to original levels or below. This was the case for samples stored in the light or in the dark. For palmitoleic acid, a similar trend was seen. For oleic acid, this trend was seen for samples stored in the dark. For samples stored in the light the general trend was a decrease in level over the storage period (up to 33 days).