The role of dominant personality traits in multiple perpetrator rape proclivity

Background/Aim Multiple perpetrator sexual assaults (MPSA) often involve more severe forms of sexual violation and result in a host of impairments for the victim. To further investigate the characteristics of MPSA, researchers have taken an interest in personality traits, varying group dynamics, and the role a leader may play. This study examines the possible linkage between dominant personality characteristics and the propensity to engage in multiple perpetrator sexual assault. Method Using anonymous online surveys, university student participants were assessed on The Personality Scale for Dominance and the Multiple Perpetrator Rape Proclivity Scale (M-PRIS). We hypothesized that dominant personality traits would predict M-PRIS proclivity score. Results Of 176 respondents, 84 heterosexual males completed both measures. Dominance scores did not significantly predict total M-PRIS score, F(1,82) = 1.1, p = .296, the Enjoyment subscale score, F(1,82) = .66, p = .420, the Likelihood subscale score, F(1,86) = 1.13, p = .292, or the Arousal subscale score, F(1,82) = 0.66, p = .419. Conclusion In this study, dominance was not associated with a proclivity for multiple perpetrator sexual violence. Other important factors, such as psychopathy or deviant sexual interests, may mediate the relationship between dominant personality traits and the tendency to initiate a multiple perpetrator sexual assault. Future studies should examine alternative relationships in hopes of gaining a clearer picture of individuals who exhibit a proclivity for sexual violence with the aim to inform prevention and practice.

Envisioning alternative relationships with the environment through computational design

Climate change is one symptom reflecting a larger problem of how we humans view ourselves as separate from the environment. How can computation and design help us expand our perception so we can better attend to the natural world?

Coping With Stigma and Destigmatizing Intervention Strategies: An Analytical Framework

This paper addresses the stigmatization process, outlining the meaning of the social stigma and the different types of stigmata, focusing further on the ways in which stigmatized people cope with stigma and on the main intervention strategies that can be used for destigmatization. A social stigma is an undesirable characteristic or an unfavourable element, along with any generalization or attribution of further characteristics that can lower or humiliate the individual. Not the characteristic itself, but a negative meaning in the social and cultural context, make the person concerned a stigma bearer. Stigmatization describes how actual or potential negative characteristics are ascribed to a person, and thus this person is assigned to a certain socially disregarded group. At the same time, stigmatization involves associating the person concerned with the prejudices and stereotypes connected to the assigned devaluating characteristic and the experience of varied forms of discrimination. To avoid the consequences of their social stigma, the people concerned to develop in diverse social situations in different ways to cope with their stigmatization. Among these, correction, avoidance or defensive attitude, inner distance, compensation, alternative relationships, external assignment, and hostile bravado are highlighted and discussed in the paper. Destigmatization, as a reverse process to stigmatization, can be targeted through various intervention strategies. The paper addresses the most frequently used destigmatizing intervention strategies, namely protest, education, and contact, emphasizing their strengths, especially of the last two, and arguing that, depending on the type of stigma and the social context, a mixture of intervention strategies is more effective, and therefore desirable.

Career Development and Human Capital Theory: Preaching the “Education Gospel”

This chapter analyses the relationship between career development, education, and human capital theory. It argues that education lies at the heart of our understanding of how individuals develop their careers and how purposeful career development interventions can support them in this endeavour. Career development services are most evident and accessible in the education system. This relationship is not accidental but is rooted in both the historical development of the field and in the importance of human capital theory to the ideology of both education and career development. The chapter finishes by critiquing the dependence of policymakers and advocates for the field on human capital theory and by considering alternative relationships that could be built between education and career development.

Distributed Intelligence: Silk-Weaving and the Jacquard Mechanism

Background Launched in the early 1800s in Lyon, France, the Jacquard mechanism is often seen as the precursor for today’s software systems, enabling greater productivity in the automated industrial production of woven fabric.Analysis Based on archival research, this media archaeology article argues that the Jacquard mechanism enabled a new form of textile-based digital imaging. Lyon weavers used the mechanism to augment human imagination and strive for increased complexity in their quest for making textiles compete with the dominant media of the time (etching, printing, painting) and with the new medium of photography.Conclusion and implications Such augmentation of human intelligence and imagination brings to light the possibility for alternative relationships between human bodies and brains and digital systems based on collaboration rather than subsumption.Contexte On a souvent envisagé le métier Jacquard, créé à Lyon en France au début du 19ème siècle et permettant un meilleur rendement dans la production industrielle de l’étoffe tissée, comme étant un précurseur des systèmes numériques d’aujourd’hui.Analyse S’inspirant de l’archéologie des médias et recourant à la recherche d’archives, cet article soutient que la mécanique Jacquard a rendu possible une nouvelle forme d’imagerie numérique basée sur les textiles. En effet, les tisseurs lyonnais utilisaient le métier Jacquard pour accroître l’imagination humaine et atteindre une plus grande complexité afin de rendre les textiles compétitifs avec les médias dominants de leur époque (eau-forte, impression, peinture) ainsi qu’avec le nouveau média qu’était la photographie.Conclusions et implications De telles augmentations de l’intelligence et de l’imagination humaines soulèvent la possibilité de rapports alternatifs entre d’une part les corps et cerveaux humains et d’autre part des systèmes numériques fondés sur la collaboration plutôt que sur l’inégalité.Mots Clés Tissage; Mécanique Jacquard; McLuhan; Médias numériques

Usable and Useful: On the Origins of Transparent Design in Personal Computing

It is often taken for granted that personal computers today are designed to hide technical information in order to make software seem easier. While “transparency of interaction” has influenced popular understandings of computer systems, it also shapes our engagement with software as critics. This essay examines the origins of transparent design in different models of usability proposed by IBM and Apple in response to popular concerns over the inaccessibility of personal computers in the early 1980s. By tracing how and why transparency emerged from this period of crisis, we can better interrogate its justifications and imagine alternative relationships to computing.

Great expectations

Expectations for one’s romantic relationship, and the extent to which these expectations are actually met, are important predictors of relationship outcomes. Themes of romanticism (e.g., idealism, soul mates, love at first sight) emerge from our romantic socialization. But what happens when romantic relationships fall short of these ideals and expectations are unmet? The current study examined the association among unmet romantic expectations and relationship outcomes using an investment model framework. The sample comprised 296 U.S. young adults involved in dating relationships. Participants provided ratings of the romantic characteristics of their current, ideal, and potential alternative relationships. Unmet romantic expectations based on an ideal relationship were associated with lower relationship satisfaction, commitment, and investment. Unmet romantic expectations based on an alternative relationship were associated with lower relationship satisfaction, investment, and commitment and higher quality of alternatives. The results are discussed in terms of implications for researchers and clinicians/counselors.

Anchored Phylogenomics of Angiosperms I: Assessing the Robustness of Phylogenetic Estimates

ABSTRACTAn important goal of the angiosperm systematics community has been to develop a shared approach to molecular data collection, such that phylogenomic data sets from different focal clades can be combined for meta-studies across the entire group. Although significant progress has been made through efforts such as DNA barcoding, transcriptome sequencing, and whole-plastid sequencing, the community current lacks a cost efficient methodology for collecting nuclear phylogenomic data across all angiosperms. Here, we leverage genomic resources from 43 angiosperm species to develop enrichment probes useful for collecting ~500 loci from non-model taxa across the diversity of angiosperms. By taking an anchored phylogenomics approach, in which probes are designed to represent sequence diversity across the group, we are able to efficiently target loci with sufficient phylogenetic signal to resolve deep, intermediate, and shallow angiosperm relationships. After demonstrating the utility of this resource, we present a method that generates a heat map for each node on a phylogeny that reveals the sensitivity of support for the node across analysis conditions, as well as different locus, site, and taxon schemes. Focusing on the effect of locus and site sampling, we use this approach to statistically evaluate relative support for the alternative relationships among eudicots, monocots, and magnoliids. Although the results from supermatrix and coalescent analyses are largely consistent across the tree, we find support for this deep relationship to be more sensitive to the particular choice of sites and loci when a supermatrix approach as employed. Averaged across analysis approaches and data subsampling schemes, our data support a eudicot-monocot sister relationship, which is supported by a number of recent angiosperm studies.

The effect of downward counterfactual thinking on organizational citizenship behavior

This study examined the effect of downward counterfactual thinking that imaging alternative relationships to the actual positive experiences with coworkers in the past on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), through a moderated mediation model of positive meaning in work and perceived organizational support (POS). To address this mechanism, we conducted an experiment with 106 Korean employees, working in a variety of organizations, by assigning them to either counterfactual or factual conditions randomly. The results showed that participants who were in downward counterfactual thinking condition, manipulated to assume the alternative relationships to the actual positive experiences of helping other employees, evaluated more OCB than those who were in factual thinking condition. Positive meaning in work fully mediated the relationship between counterfactual reflection and OCB. There was also a significant interaction effect between positive meaning in work and POS on OCB. Specifically, positive meaning in work was more strongly associated with OCB as POS increased. Then, the result of examining the conditional indirect effect for a moderated mediation model showed that POS significantly moderated indirect path between positive meaning in work and OCB. Specifically, the mediating effect of positive meaning in work on OCB became stronger as POS increased. Limitations and further directions were discussed.