Violence against women in video games: a prequel or sequel to rape myth acceptance?

Current research suggests a link between negative attitudes toward women and violence against women, and it also suggests that media may condition such negative attitudes. When considering the tremendous and continued growth of video game sales, and the resulting proliferation of sexual objectification and violence against women in some video games, it is lamentable that there is a dearth of research exploring the effect of such imagery on attitudes toward women. This study is the first study to use actual video game playing and control for causal order, when exploring the effect of sexual exploitation and violence against women in video games on attitudes toward women. By employing a Solomon Four-Group experimental research design, this exploratory study found that a video game depicting sexual objectification of women and violence against women resulted in statistically significant increased rape myths acceptance (rape-supportive attitudes) for male study participants but not for female participants.     

Assessing the relationship between individual characteristics, neighborhood context, and fear of crime

The purpose of this study is to examine citizens’ fear of crime based on the neighborhood in which they live. Integrating individual characteristics, citizens’ perceptions, and neighborhood structure provides a more complete perspective on understanding fear. Individuals were asked to report on proximate level of fear, social cohesion, neighborhood disorder and level of police/citizen satisfaction. Neighborhood structure emerged as a predictor of citizen's fear even after controlling for race, age, gender and education. Results indicated that perceived disorder neighborhood structure was strongly associated with citizens’ fear of crime. Considering individual characteristics, perceptions of disorder, and neighborhood context simultaneously provides an opportunity to develop a more comprehensive understanding of fear and policies to reduce fear.     

General Strain Theory and Racial Insurgency: Assessing the Role of Legitimate Coping

While General Strain Theory (GST) recognizes the broad range of legitimate and illegitimate coping behaviors people adopt in reaction to strain, tests of the theory focus almost exclusively on criminal coping. We advance the theory by articulating the role of legitimate coping in the GST process. We test the theory’s assumptions that strain increases both legitimate and illegitimate coping and that negative emotions more strongly increase illegitimate coping. We also draw on recent work by Agnew and expect that these coping strategies co-occur rather than being mutually exclusive. We investigate these hypotheses in relation to black insurgency, specifically nonviolent civil-rights protest (legitimate coping) and rioting (illegitimate coping). Using data from a large 1968 survey of blacks, multivariate findings are consistent with the theory’s expectations regarding the role of legitimate coping. More broadly, our results echo calls to extend the boundaries of the discipline beyond traditional conceptualizations of “crime.”     

Adoption of retrospective Medicare maximization billing practices by state Medicaid home care programs

Home care services funded by Medicare and Medicaid grew rapidly throughout most of the 1990s. During this period some state Medicaid programs transferred costs for home care claims to the Medicare program to reduce their liability and increase beneficiary access to Medicare coverage. This article reports the findings of the first national study of these Medicare maximization billing practices for home care services. Primary data were collected to determine which states conduct retrospective Medicare billing practices and the amounts recovered from Medicare. Our analysis indicates that seven states recovered as much as dollar 265 million from Medicare in state and federal dollars during the 1990s. Ratios of recovered expenditures-to-costs incurred for retrospective billing practices conducted in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts are between 5:1 and 7:1. While retrospective billing practices may aid states in reducing Medicaid outlays and potentially help dual Medicare beneficiaries gain coverage for their home care claims, they increase Medicare expenditures for home care at a time of concern for the long-term financial viability of Medicare and illustrate the need for reforming our national long-term care financing policy.     

Different views: The impact of sex,area of residence,and victimization on teenagers' explanations for delinquency

It was hypothesized, following attribution theory, thatpsychological closeness (such as familiarity, similarity, and physical proximity) to the perpetrators of delinquency would lead to its being explained in terms of external (environmental and situational) factors. In contrast, since being a victim of delinquent acts imbues one with personal relevance it should promote internal (dispositional and personal) explanations. Consistent with these hypotheses, the 15-year-olds in the present study endorsed less individualistic explanations and stressed the social functions of delinquency more than did older subjects in an earlier study (A. Furnham and M. Henderson [1983] Lay Theories of Delinquency,European Journal of Social Psychology, 13: 107–112). Moreover, males, those living closer to the city center, and nonvictims favored external explanations more than did females, those living on the outskirts of the city and in rural areas and victims. It is concluded that social explanations for delinquency are informed both by group membership and by the context and quality of experiences of delinquency.This research was conducted by the second author as a part of her undergraduate dissertation while all three authors were at the Department of Psychology of the Bristol University.He has a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Kent at Canterbury, and is currently researching self-awareness and self-presentation in intergroup behavior.She is currently employed by the Inland Revenue.He has a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Bristol, and is currently conducting research into social identity and social influence.