Gender, partner violence, and perceived family functioning among a sample of Vietnam veterans

This study examined partner violence and perceived family functioning among a sample of 298 male veterans and their female partners. Partner violent men were higher than partner violent women on measures of partner violence severity, although differences did not reach statistical significance. Among couples experiencing unidirectional violence, female victims of partner violence reported significantly poorer family functioning than male victims of partner violence. Data appear to suggest that the effects of male-perpetrated partner violence on perceived family functioning may be larger than that of female-perpetrated partner violence.     

An Evaluation of Group Intervention Programs for Violent and Abusive Men

Using the Abusive Behaviour Inventory and Rosenberg's Self Esteem Questionnaire, we assessed the efficacy of six group intervention programs for abusive and violent men. We predicted that both physical and psychological abuse levels would be significantly lower and that self-esteem would increase significantly post-treatment. The six group programs, involving forty-five male participants overall, were conducted over ten to fourteen weeks in the Melbourne metropolitan area. Sixteen non-abusive male subjects were used as a comparison group. Results indicated that the programs were more effective than no treatment in significantly reducing psychological (but not physical) abuse and had no effect on self-esteem. No post-program differences were found between the comparison and treatment groups. We concluded that the programs had positive effects on the participants, particularly in the reduced levels of psychological abuse, and that self-esteem was not a meaningful factor in level of abusive behaviour. The relatively low mean preprogram score on the physical abuse sub-scale for the program groups may explain the lack of significant differences between the physical abuse pre-program and post-program scores.     

Contents of Volume 17, 2001

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 17, 2001     

Witchcraft, genealogy, Foucault

This paper is a genealogical reflection on both the historiography of European witchcraft and the dynamics of witchcraft trials. I argue that traditional scholarly assumptions about the 'unsophisticated' nature of early modern European mentalities result in inadequate representations of accused witches and of the social contexts and processes of the trials. Genealogy, by contrast, problematizes fundamental notions such as reason, order, power and progress in ways that not only provide a different range of effective tools for the analysis of belief in witchcraft, but also underline its crucial significance for social theory. In the final section, an analysis of a typical trial is undertaken employing key genealogical insights into confession, torture, truth, governmentality, power, pleasure and pain.     

Stress, negative social exchange, and health symptoms in university students

Although social support has been studied extensively in terms of its role in the relationship between stress and health, less attention has been devoted to the impact of negative social interactions. In this investigation, the authors examined the unique contributions of positive social support and negative social exchange in the relationship between stress and health symptoms, using data from 206 undergraduates at a large state university. Negative social exchange accounted for more variance in physical health symptoms than did life-event stress, daily hassles, or social support. The relationship between negative social interaction and physical symptoms was not the result of variance shared with psychological well-being. The importance of attending to negative aspects of social interaction among university students in terms of their health and well-being is discussed.     

The Construction of Optimal Imcomplete Block Designs When Observations Within a Block are Correlated

An algorithmic method is described for the construction of optimal incomplete block designs when a known correlation structure is assumed for observations from plots in the same block. The method is applicable to a wide class of designs and correlation structures. Some examples are given to illustrate the procedure.     

REGRESSION ANALYSIS USING SCRAMBLED RESPONSES

This paper investigates the general linear regression model Y = Xβ+e assuming the dependent variable is observed as a scrambled response using Eichhorn & Hayre's (1983) approach to collecting sensitive personal information. The estimates of the parameters in the model remain unbiased, but the variances of the estimates increase due to scrambling. The Wald test of the null hypothesis H₀: β=β₀, against the alternative hypothesis H_a: β#β₀, is also investigated. Parameter estimates obtained from scrambled responses are compared to those from conventional or direct-question surveys, using simulation. The coverage by nominal 95% confidence intervals is also reported.     

Towards a theory of point optimal testing

This paper puts the case for the inclusion of point optimal tests in the econometrician's repertoire. They do not suit every testing situation but the current evidence, which is reviewed here, indicates that they can have extremely useful Small-sample power properties. As well as being most powerful at a nominated point in the alternative hypothesis parameter space, they may also have optimum power at a number of other points and indeed be uniformly most powerful when such a test exists. Point optimal tests can also be used to trace out the maxemum attainable power envelope for a given testing problem, thus providing a benchmark against which test procedures can be evaluated. In some cases, point optimal tests can be constructed from tests of simple null hypothesis against a simple alternative. For a wide range of models of interst to econometricians, this paper shows how one can check whether a point optimal test can be constructed in this way. When it cannot, one may wish to consider approximately point optimal tests. As an illustration, the approach is applied to the non-nested problem of testing for AR(1) distrubances against MA(1) distrubances in the linear regression model.