Interpreting Child Sexual Abuse: The Impact of Victim Response

There is little empirical knowledge about whether the interpretation process of child sex offenders is offense-supportive in nature and contributes to the offending process. Vignettes were developed to compare child sex offenders’ and nonoffenders’ interpretations of child molestation incidents after ambiguous and nonambiguous victim responses. Results showed that child sex offenders’ (N = 60) interpretations did not differ from nonoffenders’ (N = 40) interpretations. Overall, the more ambiguous the child responses, the more child complicity and child benefit was seen. Our results indicate that offense-supportive interpretations are not unique to child sex offenders. The mechanisms that are responsible for whether or not to commit a sexual offense should be unraveled and treated, to prevent deviant processes to be activated.     

Teamarbeit und Gesundheit – Der Einfluss von Teammerkmalen auf Stressbewältigung und Gesundheit bei Un- und Angelernten

To date, research on teamwork and health is sparse. This accounts for teams with low-qualified workers in particular. In this paper a work psychological model for resource and stress management in teams and a study with teams of low-qualified workers are presented (N?=?265 in 33 teams). Results of multi-level analyses show, that team resources in the social work system and understaffing in teams as a team stressor have significant influence on collective coping and explain team differences. Further, team resources in the technical work system, i.e. the quality of teamwork design have significant influence on psychosomatic complaints. These influences go beyond the influences of socio-demographic variables and individual job stressors and job resources.     

Reactions of Heterosexual African American Men to Women's Condom Negotiation Strategies

This study describes responses of 172 single heterosexual African American men, ages 18 to 35, to condom negotiation attempts. Strategies used included reward, coercive, legitimate, expert, referent, and informational strategies, based on Raven's (1992 Raven , B. H. ( 1992 ). A Power/Interaction Model of interpersonal influence: French and Raven thirty years later . Journal of Social Behavior and Personality , 7 , 217 – 244 . [Google Scholar]) influence model. The purpose was (a) to identify strategies influencing participant acquiescence to request and (b) to identify predictors of participant compliance/refusal to comply with negotiation attempts. Participants viewed six videotape segments showing an actress, portrayed in silhouette, speaking to the viewer as a “steady partner.” After each segment, participants completed measures of request compliance, positive and negative affect, and attributions concerning the model and themselves. No significant differences were found in men's ratings across all vignettes. However, differences in response existed across subgroups of individuals, suggesting that, although the strategy used had little impact on participant response, the act of suggesting condom use produced responses that differed across participant subgroups. Subgroups differed on levels of AIDS risk knowledge, sexually transmitted disease history, and experience with sexual coercion. Also, the “least willing to use” subgroup was highest in anger–rejection and least likely to make attributions of caring for partner. Effective negotiation of condom use with a male sexual partner may not be determined as much by specific strategy used as by partner characteristics.     

She left, he left: how employment and satisfaction affect women's and men's decisions to leave marriages

Studies examining determinants of divorce have largely ignored differences between factors that elevate wives' and husbands' initiation of divorce. The authors use longitudinal data and a latent class model embedded in a competing-risks event history model to assess distinct predictors of wives and husbands leaving marriages. They find that when men are not employed, either spouse is more likely to leave. When wives report better-than-average marital satisfaction, their employment affects neither spouse's exit. However, when wives report below-average marital satisfaction, their employment makes it more likely they will leave. The authors' findings suggest that theories of divorce require "gendering" to reflect asymmetric gender change.     

Understanding knowledge transfer in an ergonomics intervention at a poultry processing plant

This case study reviews the knowledge transfer (KT) process of implementing a knife sharpening and steeling program into a poultry processing plant via a participatory ergonomics intervention. This ergonomics intervention required stakeholder participation at the company level to move a 'train-the-trainer' program, developed in Québec, Canada, into action on the plant's deboning line. Communications and exchanges with key stakeholders, as well as changes in steeling and production behaviours were recorded. The intervention was assumed to be at least partially successful because positive changes in work operations occurred. Ergonomic-related changes such as those documented have been cited in the academic literature as beneficial to worker health. However, several components cited in literature that are associated with a successful participatory ergonomics intervention were not attained during the project. A Dynamic Knowledge Transfer Model was used to identify KT issues that impacted on the success of train-the-trainer program. A debriefing analysis reveals that a failure to consider key participatory ergonomics factors necessary for success were related to capacity deficits in the knowledge dissemination strategy.     

Replik auf Stellungnahme zu ?Pr��fungshonorare in Deutschland �C Determinanten und Implikationen��

Responding to Merkl??s discussion the authors show that Merkl??s arguments are not convincing.     

Race, punishment, and the Michael Vick experience

Objective. The relationship between race and crime has been contentious, focusing primarily on offending and incarceration patterns among minorities. There has been some limited work on public perceptions of criminal punishment, and findings show that while minorities believe in the role and rule of law, they simultaneously perceive the justice system as acting in a biased and/or unfair manner. Two limitations have stalled this literature. First, research has focused mainly on criminal punishments to the neglect of noncriminal punishments. Second, most studies have not examined whether race remains salient after considering other demographic variables or discrimination and legitimacy attitudes.Methods. Using data from 400 adults, we examine how race affects perceptions of criminal punishment and subsequent reinstatement into the National Football League in the case of Michael Vick, a star professional quarterback who pled guilty to charges of operating an illegal dog-fighting ring.Results. Findings show that whites are more likely to view Vick's punishment as too soft and that he should not be reinstated, while nonwhites had the opposite views. Race remained significant after controlling for other variables believed to be related to punishment perceptions.Conclusion. Attitudes toward both criminal punishment and NFL reinstatement vary across race such that there exists important divides in how individuals perceive the system meting out punishment and subsequently reintegrating offenders back into society. These results underscore that white and nonwhites perceive the law and its administration differently.     

Invisible Mothers: Parenting by Homeless Women Separated from Their Children

Though surveys repeatedly demonstrate that most women who are homeless alone have minor children living apart from them, there is little information on the circumstances of their separations or whether and how they remain involved with their children. Analysis of data from in-depth interviews with mothers, relatives caring for their children, and shelter and child welfare staff highlights a tension between perspectives and aspirations of mothers and the agendas and social processes through which institutional systems manage the family life of women marginalized by homelessness and disability. Though women’s agency is evident in their efforts to maintain parenting roles, without facilitating resources and supportive structures, agency is often reduced to unpalatable choices among constraining alternatives. We consider how service systems might mitigate barriers to mothering as well as broader changes needed to genuinely support women’s aspirations for themselves and their families.