Treatment issues for survivors of physical and sexual abuse*

Many clients who participate in family therapy have experienced trauma such as physical and sexual abuse in their families of origin. Extensive literature suggests that abusive experiences can result in post-traumatic stress disorders, depression, anxiety, personality disorders, and other long-term effects. Without recognition of the effects that abuse can have on individuals, it is possible to misdiagnose clients or fail to provide them with adequate assistance. This study is an attempt to compare the symptomology of nonabused clients with physically and sexually abused clients using an empirically sound measure. The results demonstrate that the majority of clients who experienced physical and/or sexual abuse in their backgrounds scored in the clinical range on scales from the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Instrument (MCMI) (Millon, 1984). In contrast, clients who did not report abuse had significantly lower scores than the abused clients, and the majority of the nonabused clients scored in the nonclinical range on the scales of the MCMI. Treatment and theoretical implications surrounding the issues of abuse are discussed, and recommendations for marriage and family therapists are provided.     

The Effect of Evaluator Masculinity on Dyadic Hiring Decisions

Gender Issues - Research examining gender disparities in the workplace tends to focus on individual behavior rather than the behavior of teams or dyads, yet important workplace decisions such as...     

Health Risk,Inequality Indexes,and Environmental Justice

Inequality indexes have long been used to analyze distributions of income. Studies have recently begun to use these tools to evaluate the equity of distributions of environmental harm. In response, issues have been raised regarding the appropriateness of using income-based measures in the context of undesirable outcomes. We begin from first principles, identifying a theoretical preference structure under which income-based tools can be appropriate for ranking distributions of “bads.” While some critiques of existing applications are valid, they are not a justification for rejecting the approach altogether. Instead, we show how standard income-based measures can be adjusted to accommodate bad outcomes. Rather than inequality indexes, we argue that equally distributed equivalents (EDEs) are well-suited for this purpose since they account for levels and dispersion of outcome distributions. The Kolm–Pollak EDE is particularly useful, having the advantage of consistently evaluating both bads and their complementary goods (e.g., mortality risk and survival probability). As an illustration, we show how these tools can inform an environmental justice analysis of a proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule addressing indoor air pollution.     

The Persistence of High Levels of Living Alone Among Adults with Disabilities in Sweden, 1993–2011

Population Research and Policy Review - This study investigates how the probability to live alone has developed among working age individuals with and without disabilities in Sweden during the...     

Temporal Patterns of Accuracy Confidence in Social Judgments: A New Method and Initial Results

An integrated, computer-based system was developed to record participants’ continuous judgment changes on a revised form of the Interpersonal Perception Task (IPT-15). Consistent with the considerable research on “thin slice” judgments, the mean latency for greater than chance accuracy confidence was just 16 s (median = 10 s) for the ten one-part scenes on the IPT. There was also a clear and strong linear trend for increasing accuracy confidence across the first 25 s of the ten one-part scenes. For the five-two-part scenes, where comparative judgments were required (e.g., which statement is truthful, which is a lie?), no clear pattern of increasing accuracy confidence was found, with mean scores hovering near chance. The utility of the new system for analyzing the time course of social judgments is discussed and the potential reasons for the contrasting results for the one-part and two-part scenes were examined.     

The Weight Function Lemma for graph pebbling

Graph pebbling is a network model for studying whether or not a given supply of discrete pebbles can satisfy a given demand via pebbling moves. A pebbling move across an edge of a graph takes two pebbles from one endpoint and places one pebble at the other endpoint; the other pebble is lost in transit as a toll. It has been shown that deciding whether a supply can meet a demand on a graph is NP-complete. The pebbling number of a graph is the smallest t such that every supply of t pebbles can satisfy every demand of one pebble byt a vertex. Deciding if the pebbling number is at most k is \(\Pi _2^\mathsf{P}\)-complete. In this paper we develop a tool, called the Weight Function Lemma, for computing upper bounds and sometimes exact values for pebbling numbers with the assistance of linear optimization. With this tool we are able to calculate the pebbling numbers of much larger graphs than in previous algorithms, and much more quickly as well. We also obtain results for many families of graphs, in many cases by hand, with much simpler and remarkably shorter proofs than given in previously existing arguments (certificates typically of size at most the number of vertices times the maximum degree), especially for highly symmetric graphs. Here we apply the Weight Function Lemma to several specific graphs, including the Petersen, Lemke, \(4\mathrm{th}\) weak Bruhat, and Lemke squared, as well as to a number of infinite families of graphs, such as trees, cycles, graph powers of cycles, cubes, and some generalized Petersen and Coxeter graphs. In doing so we partly answer a question of Pachter, et al., by computing the pebbling exponent of cycles to within an asymptotically small range. It is conceivable that this method yields an approximation algorithm for graph pebbling.     

Social externalities,overlap and the poverty trap

Previous studies find that some social groups are stuck in poverty traps because of network effects. However, these studies do not carefully analyze how these groups overcome low human capital investment activities. Unlike previous studies, the model in this paper includes network externalities in both the human capital investment stage and the subsequent career stages. This implies that not only the current network quality, but also the expectations about future network quality affect the current investment decision. Consequently, the coordinated expectation among the group members can play a crucial role in the determination of the final state. We define “overlap” for some initial skill ranges, whereby the economic performance of a group can be improved simply by increasing expectations of a brighter future. We also define “poverty trap” for some ranges, wherein a disadvantaged group is constrained by its history, and we explore the egalitarian policies to mobilize the group out of the trap.     

The Relationship Between Nonsuicidal Self‐Injury and Family Functioning: Adolescent and Parent Perspectives

We explored parent and adolescent reports of family functioning, how this differed if the parent was aware that their child self‐injured, and how parental awareness of self‐injury was related to self‐injury frequency, self‐injury severity, and help seeking. Participants were 117 parent–adolescent dyads, in 23 of which the adolescent self‐injured. Adolescents who self‐injured reported poorer family functioning than their parents, but parents who did not know about their child's self‐injury reported similar functioning to parents whose children did not self‐injure. Parents were more likely to know that their child self‐injured when the behavior was severe and frequent. Help‐seeking was more likely when parents knew about self‐injury. Family‐based interventions which emphasize perspective‐taking could be used to effectively treat self‐injury.