Blame Attributions Among Child Sexual Abuse Survivors and Disclosure of the Abuse

Child sexual abuse (CSA) disclosure is critical for survivor´s psychosocial adjustment later in life. The aim of the present study was to analyze the relationship between attributions of blame for child sexual abuse by the victim and the disclosure of the abuse to parents or caregivers while controlling for characteristics of the abuse. Female college students between 17 and 24 years of age (M = 19.44, SD = 1.64) from a southern Spanish University were surveyed. Of 1547 respondents, 153 (9.90%) reported having suffered some form of CSA before the age of 15. Information about the characteristics of abuse (age of onset, type of abuse suffered, continuity of abuse, and relationship with and age of the perpetrator) and the existence of abuse disclosure by the survivor was obtained from a self-reported questionnaire developed for the present study. The Attributions of Responsibility and Blame Scale (McMillen & Zuravin, 1997) was used to assess attributions made about CSA (self-blame, perpetrator blame and family blame). The results of a logistic regression model was statistically significant, χ² (9) = 43.856, p < .001. The model explained 41% (Nagelkerke R²) of the variance of abuse disclosure and correctly classified 85.6% of cases. Survivor disclosure was 5.50 times more likely to occur when the perpetrator was not a family member (Wald = 8.14, p < .01) and 3.95 times more likely to occur when there was not physical contact with the perpetrator (Wald = 4.30, p < .05). The occurrence of disclosure was also related to increased perpetrator age (Wald = 4.83, p < .05). With regard to the attributions of blame, the occurrence of disclosure was related to lower scores on self-blame (Wald = 6.78, p < .01) and higher scores on family blame (Wald = 9.67, p < .001). However, no relationship was found between perpetrator blame and disclosure of abuse. The results confirm the idea that not only self-blame attributions, but also family blame attributions are critical to the decision of a CSA victim to disclose abuse. The possibility that children who do not disclose abuse have a greater need to deny the occurrence of abuse, or have more confusion about being abused is discussed. Attributions of blame should be taken into serious consideration when evaluating children for possible sexual abuse.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

A simple circuit realization of the tent map

We present a very simple electronic implementation of the tent map, one of the best-known discrete dynamical systems. This is achieved by using integrated circuits and passive elements only. The experimental behavior of the tent map electronic circuit is compared with its numerical simulation counterpart. We find that the electronic circuit presents fixed points, periodicity, period doubling, chaos and intermittency that match with high accuracy the corresponding theoretical valuesComment: 6 pages, 6 figures, 10 references, published versio

Singular measures and the little Bloch space

Aleksandrov, Anderson and Nicolau have found examples of inner functions that are in the little Bloch space with a specific rate of convergence to zero. As a corollary they obtain positive singular measures defined in the boundary of the unit disc that are simoultaneously symmetric and Kahane. Nevertheless their construction is very indirect. We give an explicit example of such measures by means of a martingale argument

La calidad en las redes de conocimiento y aprendizaje

La fuerza y el empuje de la sociedad del conocimiento ha propiciado un desarrollo incrementado en proporción geométrica cada momento. El apresuramiento, la velocidad de los cambios y su necesidad de difusión han hecho descuidar algunos aspectos básicos en la gestión, entre ellos la calidad. En este artículo se presentan diversos criterios muy concretos para evaluar la calidad de las redes de aprendizaje y se apuntan algunos de los problemas que pueden suponer cambios y dificultades en el paraíso cibernético

Taller de Visual Thinking

El objetivo fundamental de este taller ha sido descubrir qué es el pensamiento visual y cómo puede aplicarse a procesos de creatividad y generación de ideas, pero también de productividad, empresa e investigación. Durante el taller se han abordado los siguientes temas: • qué es el pensamiento visual • cómo funciona nuestra mirada • historia de las imágenes y cómo se han usado para comunicar y hacer ciencia • la actual iconosfera y la importancia de la imagen • las 4 fases en el visual thinking (mirar, ver, imaginar y mostrar) • dinámicas/juegos para ponerlo en práctica • y algunas herramientas útiles para usar el pensamiento visual (mapas mentales, sketchnotes, visualizaciones de datos…)Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Pathways from Childhood Sexual Abuse to Trait Anxiety.

Background Children exposed to sexual abuse are at risk for developing several psychological and behavioral difficulties during adulthood. Here, direct and indirect effects of family conflict, insecurity within the family system (manifested as disengagement and/or preoccupation), and negative feelings provoked by childhood sexual abuse (CSA) on trait anxiety scores were analyzed with structural equation modeling. Both Finkelhor and Browne’s traumagenic dynamics model and Davies and Cummings Emotional Security Theory were applied. Methods A total of 168 female college student survivors of CSA participated in this study. Information regarding each participant’s abuse was obtained from a self-reported questionnaires. Emotional security was assessed with the Security in the Family System scale. To assess negative feelings regarding abuse and trait anxiety, Children’s Impact of Traumatic Events Scale-Revised and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory were applied, respectively. Results Level of family conflict was found to directly relate to emotional insecurity and trait anxiety. In addition, preoccupation strategies were found to be directly related to trait anxiety. Conversely, disengagement strategies were indirectly related to anxiety through the negative feelings provoked by abuse. Experience with other types of abuse and/or neglect was also related to emotional insecurity and feelings provoked by CSA. Meanwhile, continuity of abuse only correlated with feelings provoked by abuse. Conclusions Strong relationships between family conflict, emotional insecurity, negative feelings provoked by CSA and trait anxiety were observed. These results suggest that treatment of CSA survivors should focus on improving security within the survivors’ family system and reducing negative feelings provoked by abuse

Generation of Multi-Scroll Attractors Without Equilibria Via Piecewise Linear Systems

In this paper we present a new class of dynamical system without equilibria which possesses a multi scroll attractor. It is a piecewise-linear (PWL) system which is simple, stable, displays chaotic behavior and serves as a model for analogous non-linear systems. We test for chaos using the 0-1 Test for Chaos of Ref.12.Comment: Corresponding Author: Eric Campos-Cant\'o