Presence Of Other Persons Research Articles

Characteristics of Child Sexual Abuse Cases Referred for Psychological Services in Hong Kong: A Comparison Between Multiple Incident versus Single Incident Cases

ABSTRACT This study examined 58 sexually abused children referred for clinical psychological services in 1999 in Hong Kong and compared the characteristics and disclosure patterns between those with multiple incidents of abuse and those with single incident. The former group was more likely to have been abused by a family member, took a longer time to disclose, and was more often abused in contexts where the abusers had control and power. Over 40% of subjects also reported presence of other persons during abuse. Myths and misconceptions among professionals are highlighted. Implications on future service development and training needs in child protection are discussed.

Gender and Computers: Understanding the Digital Divide

Gender and Computers: Understanding the Digital Divide. Joel Cooper & Kimberlee Weaver. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 2003. 168 pp. ISBN: 0-8058-4427-9. $19.95 (paper). ISBN: 0-8058-4426-0. $45.00 (hardcover). As part of a psychology experiment, students played the Zork adventure game on a computer. When they played the game in private, females did a lot better than males, but when there was another person in the room, males performed far better than females. The mere presence of another person degraded female performance even though the other person was on the other side of the room working on something completely different. In their book, social psychologists Joel Cooper and Kimberlee Weaver use the concept of to explain this impact of the presence of another person upon computer game performance. They argue that females experienced great anxiety because they believed the stereotype that females tend to fail at computer tasks. They did not consider any alternative explanations-for example, that females might have been bored with the game and became easily distracted by the mere presence of other person. Gender and Computers consists of a series of little studies like the Zork experiment to make the case that there is a deep digital divide based upon gender. Additionally, the little book (168 pages) claims that the gender gap is maintained primarily by computer anxiety, social facilitation, stereotyping, and gender-based performance expectations. The interplay between gender and information technology has drawn the attention of both academics (cf. Andersen, Landmark, Harris, & Magnan, 1994) and practitioners (cf. Furger, 1998) for several decades. A contribution to the literature from psychology is welcome, because to date, this topic is dominated by feminists, computer scientists, sociologists, and educational researchers. Regrettably, Gender and Computers does not live up to its broad title, but instead ignores most of the literature and considers only a narrow range of social processes that maintain gender differences in relation to technology. A preponderance of the studies discussed by Cooper and Weaver deal only with gender in computer games, but most computer work does not include the competitiveness of games. Most recreational use of computers now is on the Internet, where gender has a very different role (Kennedy, Wellman, and Klement, 2003). Further, Bird and Jorgenson (2003) found that among working-class families, men were more resistant than women to both recreational and work-related uses of the Internet. Cooper and Weaver's model of computers in education is that of games and drills, but the field of educational technology has progressed in new directions. Games and drills were big in education 25 years ago, but now the predominant technology interest is in software, to assist students with projects and complex thinking (Jonassen, 2000). …

Factores Psicológicos que incrementan el riesgo de accidentes de circulación

Los automovilistas se ven afectados por una serie de factores psicológicos que están relacionados con los accidentes de tráfico. En este trabajo, procuramos investigar estas variables basándonos en las fuentes de información - y bibliografía más conveniente - proporcionadas por : la policía, la Dirección General de tráfico, Juzgado, Compañías aseguradoras, Cruz Roja, Seguridad Socialy Forenses. Tampoco nos podíamos olvidar de la influencia de las fuerzas sociales sobre la salud mental, que en ocasiones puede afectar intensamente a la conducción. En efecto, en las más diversas situaciones se puede comprobar que la actuación de una persona en una tarea se ve afectada por la presencia de otras personas que pueden no tener ninguna relación directa con ella. La sociedad ha impuesto limitaciones y normas, perola misma velocidad se siente impotente para imponer a otros controles al comportamiento más profundo, aunque inconsciente del hombre. Las personas suelen conducir el automóvil de forma similar a como se comportan y a sus rasgos de personalidad. Sin embargo, también es importante la adaptación del modo de conducir al estado de ánimo del momento. La mayoría de los sujetos tienden a adaptar su modo de conducir a su estado emocional.

The Losses and Suffering of Terminal Illness

The Losses and Suffering of Terminal Illness

The Losses and Suffering of Terminal Illness

197 tant to intervene in relieving the indignation of loss and instead relegate the person to a disease ("the lung cancer in room 24"), falsely abolishing the necessity of ministering to the individual and the losses of a terminal illness. More­ over, physicians may inadvertently abandon terminally ill persons because they feel impotent in response to impend­ ing death, further devaluing the dying person and exacer­ bating the incalculable losses, including the physician's own sense of loss . Physicians must acknowledge that there are no answers to many of the questions and losses of dying persons and that their mere attendance relays a sense of caring, concern, and compassion. And while discerning the meaning of life may be impossible, physicians can promise to face illness together with the dying person and accept and realize that silence and empathic listening are two of the greatest forms of communication. Also , nurses, social workers, clergy, and volunteers are valuable colleagues who can help the physician with this burdensome and difficult task and assist in assuaging the losses of death." But aside from the losses the dying person feels, family

Do sexual offenders molest when other persons are present? A preliminary investigation.

This study utilized a rough clinical survey to assess the prevalence of child molestation perpetrated in the presence of other non-collaborating persons. Survey data were gathered on 131 post-incarcerated adult sex offenders at two community treatment programs. Subjects were divided into two groups, child molesters (CMs) and nonmolesters (NCMs). Results indicated that 54.9% of the CMs had molested when another child was present, 23.9% had molested when another adult was present, and 14.2% had molested when both a child and an adult were present. Both groups implicated increased excitement, a sense of mastery, and compulsive sexual behavior as the reasons for this type of offense. Moreover, the data indicated that approximately 63% of the offenders who had not molested in the presence of other persons felt they may have progressed to that point had they not been arrested and placed in treatment. Limitations of the study are discussed.

Activity Pattern Analysis by Means of Sequence-Alignment Methods

The author describes a method of comparing sequences of characters, called sequence alignment or string matching, and illustrates its use in the analysis of daily activity patterns derived from time-use diaries. It allows definition of measures of similarity or distance between complete sequences, called global alignment, or the evaluation of the best fit of short sequences within long sequences, called local alignment. Alignments may be done pairwise to develop similarity or distance matrices that describe the relatedness of individuals in the set of sequences being examined. Pairwise alignment methods may be extended to many individuals by using multiple alignment analysis. A number of elementary hand-worked examples are provided. The basic concepts are discussed in terms of the problems of time-use research and the method is illustrated by examining diary data from a survey conducted in Reading, England. The CLUSTAL software used for the alignments was written for molecular biological research. The method offers a powerful technique for analyzing the full richness of diary data without discarding the details of episode ordering, duration, or transition. It is also possible to extend the analysis to include the context of activities, such as the presence of other persons or the location, but such extensions would require software designed for social science rather than biochemical problems. The method also offers a challenge to researchers to begin to develop theories about the determinants of daily behavior as a whole, rather than about participation in single activities or about time-budget totals.

Media violence and aggression : Effect of the presence of other person

Media violence and aggression : Effect of the presence of other person

Pleasure of leisure-pleasure of work: Personality makes the difference

It seems natural to enjoy leisure more than work. However, time sampling studies on emotions in everyday life situations revealed large and consistent individual differences in the leisure/work discrepancy of mood. By reanalyzing data of 7 different studies ( N = 188) performed with the time sampling diary of Brandstätter (1977; Bericht über den 30. Kongreβder DGfPs in Regensburg 1976. Gottingen: Hogrefe), subjects high and low in leisure/work discrepancy of mood could be identified by the 16PF second order factors emotional stability and extraversion. For 16 (4 by 2 by 2) categories of situations, classified according to the presence of other persons, leisure-work, and at home-out of home, two indices of stimulation intensity were calculated. During leisure as well as during work only extraverts, and not introverts, felt much better in situations with high stimulation than in situations with low stimulation. Although, on average across types of situations and persons, leisure situations were not more activating than work situations, extraverts compared to introverts used the freedom of leisure time for choosing more often highly stimulating activities. Moreover, it could be shown (a) that leisure provides better opportunities for satisfying social motives than work, and (b) that extraverts have stronger social motives which can more easily be satisfied during leisure than during work. Thus, individual differences in the need for stimulation and in the strength of social motives on the one hand, and environmental differences in activation and in the opportunities for satisfying social motives are most likely the causes of the differences between introverts and extraverts in the leisure/work discrepancy of mood. As predicted and tested with a new data set, the connotative meaning of “leisure” and “work” is different for introverts and extraverts, and these differences on the valence and arousal dimension correspond to the differences found in the diary data.

A mediating role of physiological arousal in social facilitation

An experiment was conducted to examine the mediating role of physiological arousal in social facilitation. It was hypothesized that the elevation of arousal level by the presence of other persons or evaluative apprehension would facilitate task performance. Twenty-four male and 24 female college students performed simple task alone, with a cooperative person, or with a competitive person. One half of the subjects was given an instruction which would produce evaluative apprehension. Subjects' skin potential responses were measured as the indices of physiological arousal. Although the hypothesis was supported by the analysis of psycho-physiological index, but it was not at all by the self-reported index of arousal.

Survey Analysis for the Guidance of Family Planning Programs

The papers included here each elucidate the value of the World Fertility Survey (WFS) or other surveys for family planning analysis. 5 subjects of current interest are treated in this volume. The problem of estimating demand or unmet need for services is dealt with by 2 different approaches cross-sectional and time-orientedd. Both of these estimates of demand work from interview statements as to whether or not more children are wanted. Several papers reflect in different ways the problematic nature of questions on desired family size wanting/not wanting more children and fecundity status. The 2nd subject concerns the exploitation of survey information for policy development and program planning. The 3rd section of the volume concerns reasons for the use/non-use of contraception. Overall while the clearest correlates of contraceptive use have always been family size age and education it has not been easy to go much beyond that in describing users and non-users. Analysts still have much to do in explaining or predicting who will initiate and continue contraceptive use. The 4th section discusses service availability. Actual availability is an areal variable and must come from objective data on the number and type of service points in the village or the distance to the nearest clinic. Users have better information than non-users on all these points and so the knowledge and the use of contraceptive services tend to move along together. The final section concerns a muchh neglected feature of home interviews in developing countries--the frequent presence of other persons. Thorough analysis of interview responses shows that others presence did no great damage to the reporting of contraceptive knowledge and use. The papers included in this volume report on a number of surveys other than the WFS and cover studies from various developing countries.

Contrasting Cultural Patterns of Interpersonal Closeness in Doctors' Waiting Rooms in Sydney and Jakarta

It is suggested that Indonesians, in contrast to Australians, place a greater emphasis on interpersonal closeness. This was examined by comparing patterns of behaviour in doctors' waiting rooms in Jakarta and in Sydney, using an observation schedule and a follow-up interview. It was found that Indonesians are significantly more likely to be accompanied by another adult. They are also significantly more likely than Australians to sit close to another stranger, and to talk to another stranger. The interview responses indicated a greater Indonesian sensitivity to the presence of other persons. The study provides a partial demonstration of a general Indonesian cultural theme.

Social facilitation of dominant responses by the presence of an audience and the mere presence of others.

Experiments have shown that the presence of an audience affects individual performance b y enhancing the emission o f dominant responses. A n experiment was conducted t o evaluate the proposal o f Zajonc that the mere presence of other persons is responsible for audience effects. A total o f 4 5 university students performed a pseudorecognition task; 1 5 performed the task alone, I S performed the task before a n audience o f 2 passive spectators, and 1 5 performed the task in the presence o f 2 persons who were not spectators. The task placed previously established verbal habits i n competition with each other. The presence o f a n audience enhanced the emission o f dominant responses, but the mere presence of others did not.