Coercive Processes Research Articles

Validating the Construct of Coercion in Family Routines: Expanding the Unit of Analysis in Behavioral Assessment with Families of Children with Developmental Disabilities.

We conducted an observational study of parent-child interaction in home activity settings (routines) of families raising young children with developmental disabilities and problem behavior. Our aim was to empirically investigate the construct validity of coercion in typical but unsuccessful family routines. The long-term goal was to develop an expanded ecological unit of analysis that may contribute to sustainable behavioral family intervention. Ten children with autism and/or mental retardation and their families participated. Videotaped observations were conducted in typical but unsuccessful home routines. Parent-child interaction in routines was coded in real time and sequential analyses were conducted to test hypotheses about coercive processes. Following observation, families were interviewed about the social validity of the construct. Results confirmed the presence of statistically significant, attention-driven coercive processes in routines in which parents were occupied with non-child centered tasks. Results partially confirmed the presence of escape-driven coercive processes in routines in which parent demands are common. Additional analysis revealed an alternative pattern with greater magnitude. Family perspectives suggested the social validity of the construct. Results are discussed in terms of preliminary, partial evidence for coercive processes in routines of families of children with developmental disabilities. Implications for behavioral assessment and intervention design are discussed.

A Multipopulation Comparison of the Diffusion of Public Organizations and Policies across Space and Time

This study examined the longitudinal spatial diffusion of state government policies and their related implementation organizations in the American states. The impact of coercive, institutional, and competitive processes on policy and state agency adoption were considered, as well as how aspects of the underlying policy can impact the degree of spatial diffusion. The rises of 27 different policy populations were analyzed over time, each representing not only a different policy form but a distinct implementation organization. The policy adoption/spatial diffusion relationship across all populations was examined and results showed that the degree of spatial diffusion varied greatly. Analysis of potential relationship moderators indicated that federal impetus (coercive processes) led to an absence of spatial diffusion. Policies with an institutional basis also showed an absence of spatial diffusion while competition-based policies diffused spatially.

A Multipopulation Comparison of the Diffusion of Public Organizations and Policies across Space and Time

This study examined the longitudinal spatial diffusion of state government policies and their related implementation organizations in the American states. The impact of coercive, institutional, and competitive processes on policy and state agency adoption were considered, as well as how aspects of the underlying policy can impact the degree of spatial diffusion. The rises of 27 different policy populations were analyzed over time, each representing not only a different policy form but a distinct implementation organization.The policy adoption/spatial diffusion relationship across all populations was examined and results showed that the degree of spatial diffusion varied greatly. Analysis of potential relationship moderators indicated that federal impetus (coercive processes) led to an absence of spatial diffusion. Policies with an institutional basis also showed an absence of spatial diffusion while competition‐based policies diffused spatially.

Federalism in the Regulation of Chemical Pollutants in Australia

In response to the growth of the environment movement and increasing citizen concern for the environment, the Commonwealth and the Australian states moved to set up government departments of environment, or Environment Protection Agencies, in the early 1970s. At first the issues which engaged the public were 'green' ones, involving land and marine degradation, biodiversity (a term not then in use), and activities such as logging, mining and the generation of hydro-electric power. These were soon joined on the public agenda, however, by concerns over 'brown' issues such as chemical pollution and the management of hazardous chemicals and chemical wastes, but these were less well understood by the general public than the more visible 'green' issues. At this time, also, Australian governments took significant steps to achieve nationally consistent regulation through the work of ministerial councils, notably the Australian Environment Council (AEC) and subsequently the Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council (ANZECC). A further wave of environmentalism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, coupled with further development of the federalism model for environmental regulation that flowed from high-level inter-government meetings that were formalised as the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), gave rise to the formation of the National Environment Protection Council (NEPC). This body, while not giving more power to the Commonwealth, achieves national harmonisation of regulations through slightly more coercive processes than are available to the older-style ministerial councils. These continue to exist, however, operating in parallel with NEPC. For chemicals coming into use, there are national schemes under which the Commonwealth, states and territories regulated industrial, agricultural and veterinary chemicals, therapeutic substances, and food additives. Most 'brown' issues, however, remain with the successor to ANZECC, the Environment Protection and Heritage Council, as part of which NEPC continues to develop national approaches. In both periods of rapid change, there was a coincidence of environmentalism and federalism, but international developments were also important--in the first phase the United Nations' first 'environment' meeting, held in 1972 in Stockholm, and in the second the developments flowing from the so-called 'Earth Summit' held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Although public environmentalism continues to be mainly concerned with 'green' issues, the 'brown' issues remain a focus for governments and some non-government organisations.

Switching field calculations in amorphous microwires with positive magnetostriction

A new method for the calculation of switching field values in Fe 77.5Si 7.5B 15 amorphous microwires with large and positive magnetostriction is presented. The approach used is based on the nucleation at coercivity process. The anisotropy constants that enter the energy balance are calculated starting from internal stresses induced during preparation. Experimental values of the switching field are used to validate the theoretical results.

Family Therapy for Conduct Disorders

Low levels of parental skill and cooperation are the prominent roots of arrested socialization, and a lack of appreciation for intimate and gratifying human relationships is evident in children with CD. The relational problems are exaggerated further by the child's observation of chronic parental discord and internalization of a family image constructed around intrafamilial conflict and isolation. Skills deficits in parental and marital communication and problem solving and conflicts in these relationships play significant roles in producing family dysfunction. The low level of parental differentiation and identity formation plays a fundamental role in family dysfunction by interfering with the development of an adequate self-image, self-esteem, and internal codes of behavior in the child. The transmission of parental antisocial tendencies to their children is facilitated by the low level of differentiation between parent and child. Family treatment should focus on enhancing cooperation between parents and children and between parents as co-parents and as a couple. Enhancing parent management skills can undermine the use of coercive, punitive, and impulsive interactions in the families. The higher divorce rate in parents of children with CD should be addressed with parents directly and early in treatment with the hope of mobilizing the rehabilitative and cooperative marital forces. In terms of future directions, family studies should address and incorporate the expanding knowledge of biologic and psychologic characteristics of children with CD and the possible impact of such characteristics in undermining family development and integrity. Such investigations should include the following information: The role of sustained and intense aggression in some children on family functioning and development. The possible role of diminished response to punishment and excessive search for gratification in children with CD. The role of the child with CD in promoting marital and family discord and divorce. The role of neurotransmitters (such as serotonin) in the production of irritability, provocativeness, coercive family processes, and subsequent depression in the caregiver or the child. Effective models of intervention with children with CD in hospitals and residential treatment centers.

Coercive family processes: A replication and extension of Patterson’s coercion model

Coercive family processes: A replication and extension of Patterson’s coercion model

The Science of Sharing Power: Native American Thought and Behavior Analysis

Native American cultures have, over thousands of years, identified cultural practices from which other cultural entities, behavior analysis included, may benefit. In this paper, the authors discuss confluences between the principle of shared power in Native American (particularly Pueblo) philosophy and contemporary behavior analysis. Intriguing and useful convergences were identified in the definition of power, recognition of connectedness and definitions of "the person," the importance of constructional as opposed to coercive processes, lack of hierarchy (related to equivalence relations), and the utility of diverse voices. A behavior analysis of practices that instantiate the sharing of power in Native American cultures provides valuable guidance for work with problems of social importance, particularly for applied work at a cultural level. Examples of current and emerging work consistent with this analysis are also briefly considered.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Addressing youth anger and aggression in school settings

School psychologists, like other mental health professionals working within school settings, areoften called upon to diagnose and treat serious emotional and behavioral disorders in youth. Althoughtraditional categories of childhood psychopathology such as depression, anxiety, and disruptive be-havior disorders have received the bulk of research and clinical attention, an emerging interest amongpractitioners is in the area of children’s anger-related problems. Despite an overall lack of consen-sus with regard to defining and operationalizing anger and related constructs such as hostility andaggression (Smith & Furlong, 1994), a growing body of literature is documenting the role of angerin a wide range of social, academic, occupational, and health-related outcomes. Clear linkages havebeen established, for example, between chronically high levels of anger and problem behavior atschool (Smith, Furlong, Bates, & Laughlin, 1998), poor academic performance (Heavy, Adelman,Nelson, & Smith, 1989; Hinshaw, 1992), peer rejection (Dodge, 1993), and psychosomatic com-plaints (Friedman, 1991). Additionally, anger is an associated feature of numerous externalizing andinternalizing disorders in children including oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, atten-tion deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and depressive and anxiety-based disorders (Eckhardt & Deffen-bacher, 1995).The purpose of this special issue of Psychology in the Schoolsis to provide school psycholo-gists with information pertinent to the prevalence, development, diagnosis, and treatment of anger-related problems within school settings. School psychologists are interested in anger-related prob-lems among youth from at least four major foci. The first pertains to factors contributing to theexperience of anger and hostility and management of angry feelings. Contemporary research has em-phasized multiple causal factors including biological influences, family variables, the role of schooland peers, and cultural, social, and economic forces. The article by DeBaryshe and Fryxell looks atfamily and peer process variables that are influential in the development of chronically high levelsof anger and aggression. Specifically, the article examines communication patterns and coercive fam-ily processes as well as social-cognitive variables that characterize angry, aggressive youth. The ar-ticle by Morrison, Robertson, and Harding examines the critical role of social support including per-ceived parental supervision in fostering resiliency among elementary-age students from a Latinocommunity who were characterized as aggressive on the basis of teacher ratings.Of additional interest to school psychologists is the role of anger in disruptive and antisocialbehavior within school settings. Numerous researchers have commented on the stability of aggres-sion over time and across situations. Childhood aggression has been shown to be highly predictiveof later aggressive, antisocial behavior (Farrington et al., 1990; Olweus, 1984; Trembley et al., 1992).Additionally, anger and hostility appear to be important factors in the occurrence of violence inschools (Furlong, Chung, Bates, & Morrison, 1995). The article by Kingery, Coggeshall, and Alfordreviews findings from three recent national surveys pertaining to school and community violenceamong adolescents. Not surprisingly, incidents of school violence appear to be closely linked to in-volvement with violence in the broader community, both as perpetrator and victim. This article also

Do quasi-markets evolve? Institutional analysis and the NHS

Institutional analysis offers a promising opportunity for theoretical cross-fertilization between economics and sociology. Neo-institutional economics argues that organizations gravitate towards common forms of economic organization (markets, hierarchies, or hybrid forms) primarily to minimize transaction costs, the new institutionalism in sociology contends that convergence may also depend on mimetic, normative, and coercive processes affecting 'organizational fields.' This paper examines organizational change in the NHS, focusing on areas of convergence and divergence in the contracting policies adopted by Welsh health authorities and trusts. Some versions of institutional analysis portray change as an evolutionary process driven primarily by efficiency considerations. The authors suggest that the development of NHS contracting policy is characterized by periodic strategic and administrative shifts which cast doubt on the evolutionary model and resemble the coercive institutional processes described by the sociological institutionalists. Copyright 1997 by Oxford University Press.

Reversal mechanisms in Tb/Fe multilayers

Reversal processes in Tb/Fe multilayer films are reported. The form of the hysteresis is explained as a function of the number of bilayers in terms of a two-coercivity model. Remanence measurements have been made which provide an insight into the distribution of the energy barriers for the two coercive processes associated with nucleation or domain-wall motion. The time dependence of magnetization has also been measured and this has been used to evaluate fluctuation fields and activation volumes for the series of films. The variation of the fluctuation field with applied field indicates that the two-coercivity model proposed is consistent with the time dependence. An increase is seen in the average activation volume with the number of bilayers.

Compliance, consensus and counter‐dependence: Foreign policy in Ecuador

Most scholarly work on the foreign policy of dependent states works within the compliance model. Compliance anticipates that dependent states, vulnerable to the core's ability and willingness to punish them, will follow the foreign policy guidance of the core. Bruce Moon has demonstrated that foreign policy alignment between core and periphery often develops not through a coercive process, such as that described by compliance, but through a cooperative procedure. Moon's consensus model anticipates that ideological agreement among elites in periphery and core will lead to foreign policy concordance. Compliance and consensus both expect dependent states to follow the core's foreign policy wishes. Few researchers have attempted to explain the conditions under which foreign policymakers in dependent states defy core preferences. This paper identifies a third dependent foreign policy model to account for this outcome, counterdependence. After introducing the three dependent foreign policy types, the paper exam...

Living-related organ donation: The donor's dilemma

New procedures for segmented organ transplantation of the lung and liver have again brought to public attention the issue of live organ donation. To provide a context for understanding the dilemmas faced by potential donors, the body of literature over the last 40 years regarding living-related organ donation with kidneys was reviewed. Results indicated that while psychological side effects have been reported including depression and family conflict these risks are generally under emphasized. Risk factors for negative psychological consequences include high age, lack of social support, and organ rejection in the recipient. Instantaneous decision-making in favor of donation is generally described. However, researchers have neglected to consider social desirability factors when assessing donor motives. Furthermore, lack of awareness has been shown concerning the coercive processes involved in moral decision-making. Health professionals should be aware that merely raising the issue of live organ donation may instigate powerful psychological processes beyond the potential donor's voluntary control and leave little room for refusal without psychological cost. Implications for treatment are discussed with these circumstances in mind.

Child Abuse and Delinquency: The Empirical and Theoretical Links

There is an association between child abuse and delinquency, but problems with study design, definition, and method currently prevent a definitive understanding of the sequences and causal relations involved. The evidence indicates that a bidirectional relationship exists between child abuse and delinquency. A framework that uses Patterson's analysis of coercive processes suggests that child characteristics, parental inadequacies, and external stressors each play a part in child abuse and delinquency.

A social learning approach to the reduction of coercive processes in child abusive families: A molecular analysis

A social learning approach to the reduction of coercive processes in child abusive families: A molecular analysis

Contempt as a Coercive Process. A Review

Contempt as a Coercive Process. A Review