Editorial: Journal of Applied Psychology and Social Science, 3 (1)

Welcome to the fifth issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology and Social Science (APASS). The aim of APASS is to provide a forum for post-graduate students to publish their work; this may be primary or secondary research, opinions piece or commentaries. This online journal is designed to offer postgraduates and staff the opportunity to disseminate their work and share good practice. It gives a forum to advancing research and research based activities across the sector whilst also helping to promote the employability of the students on our courses

Editorial Volume 5 Issue 1

Welcome to the ninth issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology and Social Science(APASS). The aim of APASS is to provide a forum for post-graduate students to publish their work; this may be primary or secondary research, opinions piece or commentaries

Book review: Femicide, gender and violence: discourses and counterdiscourses in Italy

Intimate partner violence (IPV) was routinely ignored before the 1970s unless it escalated to homicide, during a time that has now been labelled the “age of denial” (Dutton, 2006; p16). However, when Erin Pizzey opened the first women’s shelter in 1971, it started a movement of research that aimed to understand violence against women, and was a key moment in the development of the gendered model of IPV. This model attributes the causes of IPV to be related to gender inequality, patriarchy and male privilege, and describes it a as a gender-based violence. As a model, this became the dominant narrative within research and practice at the time; there exists now a wealth of research within an alternative body of work that suggests it is not fit for purpose, and ignores evidence of women’s violence, bidirectional abuse and other risk factors for IPV. Yet despite this evidence, it remains the most influential model with IPV practice informing policy, and interventions for both perpetrators and victims. By remaining as the dominant approach to addressing IPV, it is unsuccessful in providing for the treatment needs of those involved with the criminal justice system. It fails to tackle the systemic nature of IPV by ignoring its multifarious causes (including social, developmental and intergenerational origins), and does not recognise the heterogeneity of perpetrator and victim groups (see Bates, Grahan-Kevan, Bolam & Thornton, 2017 for further discussion). Not only does it not provide viable interventions for violent women, and male victims, but it also attempts to hold abusive men accountable through a confrontational process of shaming, which further fails to provide motivation for behaviour change

"I am still afraid of her": men’s experiences of post-separation abuse

Research has demonstrated the prevalence of men’s victimisation of intimate partner violence (e.g. Archer, 2000; Bates, Graham-Kevan & Archer, 2014), and more recently there has been qualitative work to highlight the severity and impact of their experiences. Little research has explored how the abuse continues or changes once the couple have separated. The aim of this study was to qualitatively explore men’s experiences of abuse post-separation and the barriers they experience to help-seeking. Interviews were done with a sample of 13 men and were analysed thematically (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Results revealed that their experience of IPV continued post-separation through harassment, false allegations and manipulation of the parental relationship. This abuse often continued, and in some cases escalated, for some time after the relationship broke down. Some men described parental alienation experiences and having had their relationship with their children manipulated or withheld completely. These experiences were impactful and left men with mental health issues, living in fear, or having affected the development of a new relationship. Findings are discussed within the context of currently policy and practice within the United Kingdom

Picture this: an investigation of the neural and behavioural correlates of mental imagery in childhood and adulthood with implications for children with ADHD

Mental imagery (MI), a vital tool in supporting memory and learning, is defined as the ability to generate and manipulate mental images in mind in the absence of sensory input. Despite its importance, there is limited understanding of the development of MI, or the developmental relationship between MI and visual working memory (VWM). In adults, it is speculated that individual differences in VWM capacity depend on variable recruitment of MI strategies. However, this has not been tested directly. The aims of this thesis are to address these gaps in the literature. With respect to development, findings demonstrate that MI is visually depictive in nature in children from age 6 (in support of depictive theory of MI) and that MI is a multi-faceted function rather than a unitary construct. That is, components of MI (image generation, image maintenance, mental rotation, image scanning) develop separably from 6 to 11 years, although note that image maintenance and mental rotation become related in adulthood. No relationship was found between components of MI and VWM in adulthood, typically developing children or in children with ADHD (age 8-14 years). Contrary to predictions, the ADHD group demonstrated broadly typical performance in each MI component and in VWM and no syndrome-specific profile of MI/VWM performance. This suggests that MI is not a weakness in ADHD and could be a useful learning tool for this group. Exactly how individual differences in MI support VWM was tested in adults. Findings demonstrated that adults exert wilful control over the visual precision and capacity of visual representations within VWM. However, individual differences in both subjective MI vividness and quantity ratings did not map onto the neural correlates of VWM (contralateral delay activity, anterior directing attention negativity). Thus, it is concluded that the subjective experiences of MI are distinct from implicit visual representations

New Directions in State Crime: A Queer Criminology Perspective

While recent decades have seen an expansion of state crime literature, the scholarship has been slow to integrate new criminological perspectives. The field is aware of state-perpetrated harms committed against queer and gender non-conforming individuals, yet there are limited works that explicitly frame the state as a criminal actor. This paper argues for the integration of queer criminology into the field of state crime to elevate harms against the LGBTQ+ community into academic awareness. Case studies demonstrating direct state violence in Russia’s Chechen Republic and indirect state violence against trans women in the United States are included to highlight the state’s role in perpetrating harm. Sexuality and gender identity will be introduced as tools to provide a holistic understanding of the harms that impact the LGBTQ+ community. In addition, the concepts of biopower and necropolitics are used as an analytical framework to demonstrate the ways in which states and their actors decide which populations of people are worthy of life

Forgetting versus facilitation: the fate of nontested information in the testing effect

Includes bibliographical references.2015 Summer.The testing effect is an established memory phenomenon that demonstrates that retrieval enhances memory relative to restudying. Testing effects can be both direct and indirect. One example of an indirect effect of testing is retrieval-induced forgetting (RIFO), in which taking a test on a subset of information can actually impair recall of related, but nontested information. Recent research has also demonstrated retrieval-induced facilitation (RIFA), the opposite pattern, in which testing on a subset of information enhances memory for related but non-tested information. The present study sought to determine the key factors that determine whether the indirect testing effects on nontested information takes the form of forgetting versus facilitation. Both experiments examined memory for cue-target pairs and vary whether the final test is a cued recall test or a free recall test. Experiment 1 did so for category-exemplar pairs, in which each category cue was paired with several category exemplars, and varied the retention interval as well. Experiment 2 used a construction in which cue words were paired with multiple, unrelated targets. While the results of Experiment 1 supported the hypothesis that a free recall final test would elicit a facilitative indirect testing effect and a cued recall final test would elicit a forgetting effect, Experiment 2 did not follow this pattern. While we are able to draw some conclusions about how certain parameters (e.g. final test type) can aid the presence of either effect, additional avenues should be pursued

Asset Management Framework for the United States Army Corps of Engineers Lock and Dam Electrical Equipment

The focus of this thesis is to design an efficient and effective preventative maintenance program for the electrical equipment that the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) operates at the locks and dams. This thesis presents the concept of asset management and designs a framework to manage the electrical assets at USACE. The methodology was tested, and the results validated the framework proposed in this thesis. The framework was tested on two separate projects and the results were the same optimized strategies, which shows that the framework is robust and can be implemented into each project and can give an effective preventive maintenance program for the electrical components. The significance of this work is to perform asset management on the electrical equipment on the lock and dams USACE operates and owns, which has not been implemented before. While corrective and preventative maintenance programs have been compared previously for electrical equipment, most analyses have been conducted on production plants. The result of conducting this study is a recommended framework for conducting asset management at USACE locks and dams

“I want my mum to know that I am a good guy...”: A thematic analysis of the accounts of adolescents who exhibit Child-to-Parent Violence in the UK

This qualitative study explores child-to-parent violence (CPV) in the UK based on the accounts of adolescents who exhibit this type of family violence. The key areas of interest concern the familial relationships and contexts within which adolescents are embedded, and their perceptions about their emotional states and how these interplay with CPV. Eight participants were recruited in total from a community sample from two different intervention programmes aiming to tackle CPV in England. Methods included participant-observation, face-to-face interviews and hand-written interviews; all data were analysed thematically. Results suggest that CPV is linked with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), unsatisfactory relationships with parents, perceived emotional rejection from parents, and emotional dysregulation in young people. In this study, violent behaviour was directed not only against mothers but in all cases against siblings and stepfathers. The findings address the complexity of the subject and the need for tailored, evidence-based interventions in the field of CPV