Intimate Partner Violence and Child Adjustment: Moderation by Father Contact?

Little is currently known about father-child contact in families with histories of intimate partner violence (IPV), despite important implications of father contact for these families. The current study of 219 ethnically diverse children aged 6 to 12-years-old and their abused mothers examined relations between father contact, IPV, and children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. Approximately 30 % of the children had no current in-person contact with their father, while another 15 % saw their father every day of the past year. Child internalizing and externalizing problems were positively correlated with frequency of IPV, but unrelated to father contact. Controlling for marital status and mother education, father contact moderated relations between IPV and child externalizing, but not internalizing problems. While father contact was not associated with child adjustment across the entire sample, it did moderate relations between IPV and child behavior problems, suggesting that child contact with a less violent or nonviolent father or father figure might have a buffering effect on behavior problems in children exposed to IPV. Recommendations around father contact in families with IPV are discussed.     

The Effect of Wanted Posters on Prospective and Retrospective Memory

The experiment tested prospective and retrospective memory for a person pictured on a wanted poster. Participants monitored the videotaped activity of a computer lab; one of their duties involved reporting if they saw a computer hacker. Half viewed a wanted poster of the hacker before the monitoring task and half after. For half the participants, the hacker appeared during monitoring and for half not. A diagnosticity ratio comparing the correct prospective memory identifications with false positive identifications showed that a prospective identification was 3.35 times more likely to be accurate than inaccurate. For those viewing the wanted poster after monitoring, the diagnosticity ratio was 1.21. Based on diagnosticity, a prospective identification had more value than a retrospective identification.     

Reviews

Silvana Malle, The Economic Organization of War Communism, 1918–1921. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, xv + 548 pp. £30.00.

Nicholas Lampert, Whistleblowing in the Soviet Union: Complaints and Abuses under State Socialism. (In association with the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham) New York: Schocken Books, 1985, xi + 221 pp. £25.00.

Christian Schmidt‐Häuer, Gorbachev: The Path to Power. London: I. B. Tauris, 1986, v + 218 pp. £12.95.

Zhores Medvedev, Gorbachev. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986, ix + 272 pp. £15.00.

Paul Dibb, The Soviet Union: The Incomplete Superpower. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan (in association with the International Institute for Strategic Studies), 1986, xiii + 293 pp. £27.50.

Mark Harrison, Soviet Planning in Peace and War, 1938–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, xiv + 315 pp. $44.50.

Peter Rutland, The Myth of the Plan. Lessons of Soviet Planning Experience. Hutchinson and Co. (Publishers) Ltd., London‐Melbourne‐Sydney‐Auckland‐Johannesburg, 1985, 286 pp. £15.00.

Stanislaw Gomulka, Growth, innovation and reform in Eastern Europe. Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books Ltd, 1986, viii + 305 pp. £28.50.

Mark E. Schaffer, ed., Technology Transfer and East‐West Relations. London: Croom Helm, 1985, 273 pp. £22.50.

Jonathan Alford, ed., The Soviet Union: Security Policies and Constraints. London: Gower for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1985, xii + 180 pp. £16.50.

Daniel S. Papp, Soviet Perceptions of the Developing World in the 1980s: The Ideological Basis. Lexington, Mass: Lexington Books, 1985, xii + 176 pp. £22.00.

Jerry F. Hough, The Struggle for the Third World. Soviet Debates and American Options. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1986, x + 293 pp. $32.95 h/b, $11.95 p/b.

Mark N. Katz, Russia and Arabia. Soviet Policy toward the Arabian Peninsula. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986, xvi + 279 pp. £24.45.

James P. Scanlan, Marxism in the USSR: A Critical Survey of Current Soviet Thought. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985, 362 pp. $35.00.

Rasma Karklins, Ethnic Relations in the USSR: The Perspective from Below. Boston, London, and Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1986, xvi + 256 pp. £18.00.

S. Enders Wimbush, ed., Soviet Nationalities in Strategic Perspective. London & Sydney: Croom Helm, 1985, xxviii + 253 pp. £19.95.

Rosalind J. Marsh, Soviet Fiction Since Stalin: Science, Politics and Literature. London: Croom Helm, 1986, 338 pp. £25.00.

Ludmilla Alexeyeva, Soviet Dissent. Contemporary Movements for National, Religious, and Human Rights. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut, 1985, xxii + 522 pp. $35.00.

Omer Bartov, The Eastern Front, 1941–45, German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare. Basingstoke/Oxford: MacMillan/St. Anthony's, 1985, xvi + 214 pp. £27.50.

Donald J. Raleigh, Revolution on the Volga. 1917 in Saratov. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1986, 373 pp. $35.75.

Janos Kornai and Xavier Richet, La Voie Hongroise: Analyses et Experimentations Economiques. Paris: Caiman‐Levy, 1986, 319 pp. 174F.

Maria Hirszowicz, Coercion and Control in Communist Society: The Visible Hand in a Command Economy. Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1986, vii + 226 pp. £25.00.

Irwin L. Collier, Connections, Effective Purchasing Power and Real Product in the German Democratic Republic. Heft 135, Reihe Wirtschaft und Recht, Berichte des Ost‐Europa‐Instituts an der Freien Universitä Berlin, 1985, ix + 216 pp.

Jan Jozef Lipski, KOR: A History of the Workers’ Defence Committee in Poland, 1976–1981. Translated by Olga Amsterdamska and Gene M Moore. Berkeley and London: University of California Press 1985, x + 561 pp. £33.95.

Patrick F. R. Artisien, Joint Ventures in Yugoslav Industry. Brookfield, Vermont: Gower, 1985, xv + 223 pp. h/b £16.50.

Barbara Holland, ed., Soviet Sisterhood. Bloomington, Indiana. Indiana University Press, 1985. 272 pp. £17.95 h/b, £5.95 p/b.

Sharon L. Wolchik and Alfred G. Meyer, eds., Women, State, and Party in Eastern Europe. Durham: Duke University Press, 1985, xiv + 453 pp. h/b $42.50, p/b $16.95.     

Psychological Distress Following Suicidality Among Gay,Lesbian, and Bisexual Youths: Role of Social Relationships

Longitudinal relations between past suicidality and subsequent changes in psychological distress at follow-up were examined among gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) youths, as were psychosocial factors (e.g., self-esteem, social support, negative social relationships) that might mediate or moderate this relation. Past suicide attempters were found to have higher levels of depressive symptoms, anxious symptoms, and conduct problems at a later time than youths who neither attempted nor ideated. Psychosocial factors failed to mediate this relation. The interaction among past suicidality, social support, and negative relationships was associated with subsequent changes in all 3 psychological distress indicators 6 months later. Specifically, high levels of support (either from family or friends) or negative relationships were found to predict increased psychological distress among those with a history of suicide attempts, but not among youths without a history of suicidality. The findings suggest that GLB youths who attempt suicide continue to have elevated levels of psychological distress long after their attempt and they highlight the importance of social relationships in the youths psychological distress at follow-up.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the biannual meeting of the European Association for Research on Adolescence, Oxford, UK, September 2002; and, at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association, San Francisco, CA, November 2003.Associate Professor of Psychology, The City University of New York—The City College and Graduate Center. Received PhD in psychology from New York University. Research interests include the relation of identity to health, the intersection of multiple identities, and the relation of violence to health.Doctoral candidate in Social/Personality Psychology and Health Psychology, The City University of New York—Graduate Center. Research interests include the role of social relationships in the preservation of health and well-being.Research Scientist, HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, New York State Psychiatric Institute; and Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University. Received doctorate in social welfare (DSW) from The City University of New York—Graduate Center. Research and clinical interests include the design and implementation of interventions for gay, lesbian, and bisexual adolescents.     

Does accountability matter? How electoral systems affect conflict initiation

Recent work on conflict suggests that electoral systems impact foreign policy-making in important ways; however, the discipline has reached different conclusions regarding how different types of electoral systems affect conflict initiation. In this study we contend that legislators are more accountable individually in candidate-centred electoral systems which impacts a state’s decision to initiate interstate conflict. We test our argument using a time-series cross-sectional analysis of 54 democracies from 1975 to 2001. The results provide strong support for the hypothesis that candidate-centred electoral systems result in less conflict initiation than party-centric systems due to higher levels of individual accountability for legislative members.