Relationship Abuse and Victims’ Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms: Associations with Child Behavior Problems

This study examined associations among male-to-female physical and psychological relationship aggression, female partners’ PTSD symptoms, and behavior problems among the children (n = 62) of men enrolled in a treatment program for relationship abuse perpetration. Psychological aggression was a stronger predictor of child behavior problems than physical assault. Restrictive engulfment and hostile withdrawal behaviors evidenced the strongest bivariate associations with child behavior problems, and were the strongest predictors of this outcome when considering four distinct forms of psychological aggression together. Victim PTSD symptoms largely mediated the effects of psychological aggression on child behavior. Findings suggest that male-to-female psychological aggression and victim PTSD symptoms play an important role in understanding behavior problems among children living with male relationship abuse perpetrators. Portions of this work were presented at the annual convention of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, New Orleans, Louisiana, November, 2004.     

Morality Influences How People Apply the Ignorance of the Law Defense

In four empirical studies, we showed that laypeople apply the ignorance of the law defense differently depending on the perceived morality of the defendant's course of conduct at the time of the illegal act. Moral and neutral defendants who pled ignorance of the law were afforded leniency, whereas immoral defendants were sentenced as though they were not ignorant, even when defendants in all three conditions violated identical laws. These findings suggest that laypeople adopt a just deserts approach to criminal law, which influences their responsiveness to a criminal defendant's claim to be ignorant of the law. We discuss the implications of these findings for criminal law and argue that legal doctrine should reflect laypeople's moral intuitions.     

Regulatory Conversations

The article proposes a new site of analysis for the study of regulation: regulatory conversations, and a new theoretical approach: discourse analysis. Regulatory conversations, the communicative interactions that occur between all involved in the regulatory 'space', are an important part of most regulatory systems. Discourse analysis, the study of the use of language and communication, suggests that such interactions are constitutive of the regulatory process, that they serve important functions, that they can be the basis of co-ordinated action, and that they are important sites of conflict and contestation. The article explores five key contentions of discourse analysis, considering how each may shed light on aspects of regulatory processes. These are, first as to the meaning of language and co-ordination of social practices; second, as to the construction of identities; third, the relationship of language, thought, and knowledge; fourth, the relationship of language and power, and finally, that meaning, thought, knowledge, and power are open to contestation and change.