Clinical Implications in Healing from Domestic Violence: A Case Study.

Violence against women by their intimate partners continues to be widespread today. Practicing psychologists who treat female clients will see the consequences of immediate and long-term emotional effects of abuse. The author uses a psychologist's personal story of domestic violence and healing from abuse to illustrate the psychological issues and concerns battered women face in their healing. The author then gives eight recommendations for treating battered women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of a Group Preventive Intervention on Risk and Protective Factors Related to Dating Violence.

A group intervention was designed to impact protective and risk factors related to dating violence in college students. The group used a manualized approach to address gender-role stereotypes and conflicts, healthy and nonhealthy entitlement attitudes, and communication and anger management skills. The experimental group consisted of 28 undergraduates who attended 4 1.5-hr group sessions. The experimental group was compared with a control group of 30 undergraduates who did not receive an intervention. The experimental group demonstrated significant reduction in (a) the restricting of emotions, (b) acceptance of traditional and stereotypical gender roles, and (c) the use of escalating strategies in conflict and negative attributions toward the target of anger. The experimental group also demonstrated significant increases in self-awareness of anger and healthy entitlement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Editorial.

The papers collected in this special issue of CJBS reflect a growing interest in the field of family violence among Canadian investigators. The purpose of this collection is twofold: first, to focus attention on the problem of family violence as a research issue by introducing some examples of current research to those unfamiliar with the issue; and second, to encourage researchers to continue and expand their efforts in this field. This collection of papers mirrors the diversity of focus among family violence research programs, the range of research techniques used, and the differences in state-of-the-art in the various sub-fields of child abuse, sexual victimization of children, and wife assault. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reanalysis and Perspective in the Heat-Aggression Debate.

B. J. Bushman, M. C. Wang, and C. A. Anderson (2005) argued that a reanalysis of E. G. Cohn and J. Rotton's (1997) Minneapolis data shows no inverted-U curvilinear relationship between temperature and aggression. Although B. J. Bushman et al.'s (2005) claim of no general inverted-U trend in the data might well be supported statistically, more careful examination of the subset of the data most likely to include the hottest temperatures in the study may offer at least some support for the inverted-U relationship. Aggregating data to describe a general trend minimizes the influence of outliers that may reflect alternative relationships, and such alternatives may be important practically and theoretically. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Prediction of Violence and Homicide in Young Men.

In this prospective study, the authors predicted violence and homicide in 3 representative school samples (N = 1,517). Participants were part of a longitudinal, multiple cohort study on the development of delinquency in boys from late childhood to early adulthood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Thirty-three participants were convicted of homicide, 193 participants were convicted of serious violence, whereas another 498 participants self-reported serious violence. Predictors of violence included risk factors in the domains of child, family, school, and demographic characteristics. Boys with 4 or more violence risk factors were 6 times more likely to later commit violence in comparison with boys with fewer than 4 risk factors (odds ratio [OR] = 6.05). A subset of risk factors related to violence also predicted homicide among violent offenders. Boys with 4 or more risk factors for homicide were 14 times more likely to later commit homicide than violent individuals with fewer than 4 risk factors (OR = 14.48). Implications for the prevention of violence and homicide are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Community Violence, Family Conflict, and Preschoolers' Socioemotional Functioning.

This study examined the relations among family conflict, community violence, and young children's socioemotional functioning and explored how children's social cognition and mothers' psychological functioning may mediate the outcomes associated with this exposure. Mothers of 431 Head Start preschoolers completed questionnaires about their family demography, exposure to community violence, family conflict, and children's distress symptoms. Children were administered a social cognition assessment, and teachers rated their behavior. Results showed that mothers' reports of children's co-witnessing of community violence were positively associated with police department crime rates, children's distress symptoms, and teachers' ratings of aggression. A path analysis revealed that children's social awareness and mothers' depressive symptoms partially mediated the effects of community violence and family conflict on outcomes for children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parent and Peer Predictors of Physical Aggression and Conflict Management in Romantic Relationships in Early Adulthood.

Violence between romantic partners is widespread, but developmental precursors of perpetration and victimization are little understood. Among participants followed from birth to 23 years of age, familial and extrafamilial childhood and adolescent relationships were examined in connection with couple violence in early adulthood. Predictors included early childhood physical abuse and witnessing of parental partner violence, features of parent-child interactions at the age of 13 years, and close friendship quality at the age of 16 years. Controlling for early familial violence, intrusive or overly familiar behavior in videotaped parent-child collaborations at 13 years of age consistently predicted violence perpetration and victimization in early adulthood. Friendship quality at the age of 16 years contributed over and above familial predictors. Understanding the role of both familial and extrafamilial close relationship precursors may lead to effective strategies for ameliorating the problem of romantic partner violence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Violence Risk Assessment: Getting Specific About Being Dynamic.

Substantial strides have been made in the field of violence risk assessment. Numerous robust risk factors have been identified and incorporated into structured violence risk assessment instruments. The concepts of violence prevention, management, and treatment have been infused into contemporary thinking on risk assessment. This conceptual development underscores the necessity of identifying, measuring, and monitoring changeable (dynamic) risk factors--the most promising targets for risk reduction efforts. However, empirical investigation of dynamic risk is virtually absent from the literature. In this article, the authors (a) differentiate risk status (interindividual risk level based largely on static risk factors) from risk state (intraindividual risk level determined largely by current status on dynamic risk factors), (b) analyze the relevance of contemporary risk assessment measures for capturing dynamic risk, and (c) distill potentially important dynamic risk factors from the literature in order to facilitate future research. Suggestions for theory development and research design are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correction to Hilton et al. (2004).

Reports errors in the article "A Brief Actuarial Assessment for the Prediction of Wife Assault Recidivism: The Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment," by N. Zoe Hilton, Grant T. Harris, Marnie E. Rice, Carol Lang, Catherine A. Cormier, and Kathryn J. Lines (Psychological Assessment, 2004, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 267-275). On page 272, line 7, and in footnote 6, line 3, the proportions assigned to the categories with scores of 5-6 and 7-13 are incorrect. The correct proportions are 13% and 7%, respectively. These changes do not affect the conclusions reported in that article. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 2004-18546-006): An actuarial assessment to predict male-to-female marital violence was constructed from a pool of potential predictors in a sample of 589 offenders identified in police records and followed up for an average of almost 5 years. Archival information in several domains (offender characteristics, domestic violence history, nondomestic criminal history, relationship characteristics, victim characteristics, index offense) and recidivism were subjected to setwise and stepwise logistic regression. The resulting 13-item scale, the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA), showed a large effect size in predicting new assaults against legal or common-law wives or ex-wives (Cohen's d=1.1, relative operating characteristic area=.77) and was associated with number and severity of new assaults and time until recidivism. Cross-validation and comparisons with other instruments are also reported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Victims of crime: The roles of psychologists.

The articles that make up this Psychology in the Public Forum section dramatically portray the pervasiveness of criminal activity and the fact that every criminal act produces at least one victim of crime. The articles further document that victims frequently need the aid of mental health professionals. Unfortunately, psychologists, like other mental health professionals, have traditionally been given little, if any, training in how to work with victims of crime and violence. Psychologists, like members of other disciplines, have focused on the criminal to the neglect of the victim. This Psychology in the Public Forum section is an attempt to inform psychologists about activities initiated by the executive and legislative branches of the federal government and by the APA Task Force on the Victims of Crime and Violence. It will have served its purpose if increasing numbers of psychologists turn their attention and skills to the plight of victims. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)