Psychological Neglect Research Articles

Juvenile delinquents' perceptions of childhood parental rearing patterns

This study compared individuals who have been identified as engaging in delinquent behavior, but who perceive their childhood differently. It examined the differentiating family and social characteristics between delinquents who were maltreated in childhood (based on self-report data) and delinquents who were not maltreated. The sample consisted of the entire population of juvenile delinquents ( N = 287) in all institutions and prisons in Greece. Childhood abuse and neglect were defined on the basis of perceived parental rearing patterns as assessed by the EMBU questionnaire, and groups of abused/nonabused and neglected/non-neglected delinquents were formed. Perceived parental abuse and/or psychological neglect (paternal and/or maternal) were found to be associated with various family and social characteristics. Specific parameters connected to the Greek societal and cultural context have also been identified.

The psychological maltreatment rating scales

Psychological maltreatment is gaining recognition as one of the core concepts in child welfare, however, its utility has been limited by definitional problems and the absence of operationalized and validated instruments. These Psychological Maltreatment Rating Scales (PMRS) were developed for assessing psychological maltreatment in mother-child interaction, and were used to rate the videotaped interaction of 49 high-risk mother-child dyads and make predictions of child protective service involvement with the dyads. These predictions are compared with predictions based upon mothers' personal resources and social support. Results show that the PMRS is a moderately reliable and valid measure of psychologically maltreating and prosocial parental behavior that can discriminate between maltreating and comparison parents, and is a more effective predictor than maternal measures. Three factors of parenting emerged from an exploratory factor analysis: emotional abuse, and two factors of positive parenting. Psychological abuse was the presence of hostile behavior, and psychological neglect the absence of positive parenting.

Identification of Elder Abuse in Institutional Settings:

Most literature on elder abuse has focused on the abuse of community dwelling elderly, rather than elderly living in institutional settings. Yet this population is particularly vulnerable to abuse because of their exceptional frailty and the danger of retaliation from their caretakers. A particular difficulty with the identification of abuse in institutional settings is the lack of measurement instruments designed to remedy this lack by analyzing the literature on institutional abuse of the elderly, and comparing this knowledge to the existing indicators of abuse. Abuse types included in the analysis are: Physical Abuse, Physical Neglect, Psychological Abuse, Psychological Neglect, Material Abuse, and Violation of Personal Rights. The research showed that most identification items used in community settings are also useful in institutional settings, but additional issues must also by considered. Among these are the need for greater attention to evidence of the use of restraints, particularly chemical rest...

Quality of Life in Cardiovascular Disease

Psychosomatic understanding of the consequences of cardiovascular disorders has had relatively little influence on the separate literature describing quality of life and evaluating interventions. This is partly because psychosomatic research has been too narrowly focussed but mainly because concepts and measures of quality of life take a limited view of its psychological aspects and neglect the significance of individual meaning. There is a need for more research which is based on carefully selected specific measures of quality of life chosen as being of particular importance to patients and to the hypotheses being tested. It is also essential to be aware of the wide range of individual response to cardiovascular disorders. Review of syndromes shows that there is considerable scope to improve understanding of the psychological aspects of quality of life and to develop and evaluate psychological interventions.

Experience and Theory as Determinants of Attitudes toward Mental Representation: The Case of Knight Dunlap and the Vanishing Images of J. B. Watson

Galton and subsequent investigators find wide divergences in people's subjective reports of mental imagery. Such individual differences might be taken to explain the peculiarly irreconcilable disputes over the nature and cognitive significance of imagery which have periodically broken out among psychologists and philosophers. However, to so explain these disputes is itself to take a substantive and questionable position on the cognitive role of imagery. This article distinguishes three separable issues over which people can be or against mental images. Conflation of these issues can lead to theoretical differences being mistaken for experiential differences, even by theorists themselves. This is applied to the case of John B. Watson, who inaugurated a half-century of neglect of image psychology. Watson originally claimed to have vivid imagery; by 1913 he was denying the existence of images. This strange reversal, which made his behaviorism possible, is explicable as a creative misconstrual of Dunlap's motor theory of imagination.

The Incidence and Prevalence of Criminal Abuse of Other Family Members

The bulk of family violence research and policy discussion focuses on marital violence and child abuse. Violence against elders, abuse of adolescents by parents, and violence by children in the family receive much less attention. Violence against elders is likely to increase because the proportion of elderly people in our population is growing, and there has been a cutback in the social services needed for prevention. Elder abuse is especially prevalent in the middle and lower middle classes and involves psychological maltreatment, financial exploitation, and physical neglect more often than actual battery. Although adolescents constitute about half the population of abused children, they are unlikely to tell anyone of their abuse; when they do, they are often disbelieved or blamed. Sibling violence, including sexual exploitation, occurs more frequently than any other type of family violence yet is the least likely to be reported to authorities.

Neglect of psychology's silent majority makes a molehill out of a mountain: There is more to behaviorism than Hull and Skinner

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