European Journal of Psychology Applied To Legal Context最新文献

The present study deals with an important problem that currently affects scientists and society, namely, the falsification and manipulation of research and researchers’ CVs, which has considerably increased in recent years. This is shown by some studies, the authors of which have found high percentages of researchers who falsify their CV or manipulate data. We analyze the system used to evaluate science and researchers, which is almost exclusively based on the impact factor. We review the main critiques on the inappropriate use of the impact factor to assess researchers and argue that this has generated a new style of thinking in which the only goal is to obtain publications with an impact factor. Over the last few years, the pressure to publish has led to an obsession among researchers to disseminate the multiple indicators of their scientific publications over the Internet, to the extent that such initiatives look like marketing campaigns where researchers advertise themselves. For all these reasons, we propose that this may be a new psychological disorder, given that several criteria indicating maladaptation are clearly met: falsification and/or manipulation of data, falsification of publication indicators, distortion of reality, belief in manipulated data, and an obsession to conduct marketing campaigns of oneself. We address the important ethical and legal implications of such falsifications. Finally, we discuss the need to change the system used to evaluate science and researchers, which undoubtedly promotes these dishonest behaviors or this psychological dysfunction.

Given that victim’ risk perception could improve risk assessment in cases of intimate partner violence research is paying attention to it. However, it is not clear whether perceived risk relates to safety-related behaviors. This study is aimed to analyze how perceived risk by women who have left a violent partner relates to their safety-related behaviors and post-separation violence. Participants were 249 women (from protection services and the community) who had concluded a violent relationship. A structural equation model describes the relationships between three groups of factors: (1) women's risk perception; (2) three types of conditions that increase the opportunity for victim/abuser contact: (a) women's actions that make them easier to track, (b) women's reasons for not protecting themselves, and (c) batterers’ strategies to gain access to their former intimate partners; and (3) post-separation violence. Results indicate that psychological violence is positively related to perceived risk and helplessness. Moreover, while women's risk perception predicts less contact and self-deception, male strategies predict greater contact and routines. In turn, contact predicts intimacy, whose absence fully accounts for 93.3% of the prediction of no re-abuse, six months later. The results’ implications for intervention are discussed.

The current study investigated the effects of state and trait empathy in legal judgments and tested the relationship between trait and state emotion in one hundred and fifty eight students aged 18–59. Assessments were taken of participants’ trait empathy and then state empathy was induced in half the sample. Following this all participants read a trial transcript and made judgments regarding: the verdict decision; the defendant's responsibility for the offense; what would be an appropriate punishment; the likelihood that the offender would offend in the future; and whether the defendant felt remorse for committing the offense. Findings showed that both trait and state empathy predicted attributions of offender remorse. State empathy also predicted judgments of offender responsibility and agreement with verdict decisions in a lenient direction. Findings also showed that state and trait empathy did not interact. The results indicate that trait and state empathy work independently to influence legal judgments and that inducing empathy in decision-makers can impact on trial outcomes above and beyond the facts of the case.

The aim of this study is to present a psychometrically sound instrument to assess intimate partner violence offenders’ responsibility attributions: the Intimate Partner Violence Responsibility Attribution Scale. The scale was administrated to 423 adult male intimate partner violence offenders court-mandated to a community-based intervention program. A three factor structure (responsibility attribution to the legal system, responsibility attribution to the victim, and responsibility attribution to the offender personal context) was supported using confirmatory factor analysis. Reliability of the scales in this study was estimated using Cronbach's alpha, ρ and greatest lower bound. The Intimate Partner Violence Responsibility Attribution Scale correlated in theoretically expected ways with variables used to assess construct validity (system blaming, problems with partner, and responsibility assumption) and with variables used to assess criterion-related validity (satisfaction with legal system, victim-blaming attitudes, alcohol consumption, hostile sexism, stressful life events, social desirability, impulsivity and household income). Results support the validity and reliability of the Intimate Partner Violence Responsibility Attribution Scale.

University teachers are one of the main figures in the European convergence process, but their attitude towards the reform of Spanish university studies is unknown. Therefore, the objective of this study is to evaluate the satisfaction of Social and Legal Sciences teachers towards the introduction of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The sample was made up of 3,068 teachers from Spanish public universities, who teach in the said field. An online questionnaire was created for this purpose, with questions relating to the EHEA, teacher tasks and training, as well as aspects related to methodology and the teaching and learning process, amongst others. Cronbach´s alpha coefficient was .81. It is a population-based, descriptive study using a cross-sectional survey with a probability sample. In the results it can be observed that only 9.3% of teachers are satisfied with the adaptation of higher education to the EHEA. Finally, the limitations faced by teaching staff in consolidating this process will be discussed.

This study investigated eyewitnesses’ memory and confidence accuracy for action information (what happened at the crime scene), and detail information (descriptions of persons, objects, time and place). In Experiment 1, 89 participants watched a film and participated in one of four conditions: Laboratory discussion, Family discussion, Retell and Control, the first three with five meetings each. Three weeks later all participants open free recalled the events, and confidence judged their answers. The participants showed better free recall and confidence accuracy for action than for detail information. Participants in the two discussion conditions and in the Retell condition recalled more items and those in the Lab-discussion and Retell conditions more correct items for action information, than those in Control group. However, the four conditions did not differ for proportion correct of all action items recalled and confidence accuracy for action items. In brief, Experiment 1 showed that witness discussions and retellings of the experienced event with others improved recall for action information but had had no, or small, effects on confidence accuracy. Experiment 2 investigated recall and confidence accuracy performance for action and detail information using focused questions. Seventy-seven participants watched a film, answered and confidence judged 63 questions about action and detail information about the events. Again, participants showed better memory and confidence accuracy for action information. Overall, the results indicate that, for both free recall and focused questions, witnesses’ recall and confidence accuracy is better for action information than for detail information, thus extra precaution is needed in the forensic system when detail information from witnesses is considered.

Different studies have proposed that batterers can be classified into distinct groups according to psychopathology, violence severity and frequency. The aim of the current study was to define a data-based batterer's typology and its implications for rehabilitation. Data were collected from 187 male sentenced for intimate partner violence –111 of them to prison and 76 to community service. A cluster analysis supported a three-cluster solution: non-pathological (NP, 40%), antisocial/violent (AV, 27%) and disturbed batterers (DB, 33%). Subsequent analysis showed that AV batterers were profiled through the perpetration of physical and psychological violence, antisocial behaviour, deviant lifestyle, criminal records, inter parental violence and drug abuse; DB batterers, were profiled through behaviours of psychological violence, physical aggression and hostility, clinical symptomatology (e.g., somatisation, depression, anxiety, paranoid ideation), criminal records, antisocial behaviour, and a deviant lifestyle; and NP batterers were not profiled through any of the variables related to criminality and recidivism. Multinomial logistic regression supported different logistic models for batterer types in terms of psychopathological, antisocial and perpetrated violence-type variables. Implications of batterer typology on treatment are discussed.

Recent research has demonstrated that the way in which interviewers reveal information/evidence to interviewees/suspects can produce noticeable differences between truthful and deceptive verbal statements. However, very little of this research has involved adolescents. In the present study, 12 to 14 year old adolescents were asked to commit (n = 26) or not to commit (n = 26) a mock crime and at interview to deny involvement in this crime. Prior to interview some information about each adolescent's behaviour was made available to the interviewer but this was not enough to enable determination of whether he or she had committed the crime. The interviewer revealed such information either at the beginning of the interview (the ‘traditional method’), at the end of the interview (as pioneered by the ‘SUE’ technique), or gradually. The interviews were analysed for interviewees’ ‘evidence omissions’ and ‘statement-evidence contradictions’. As predicted, liars omitted more crime-related information/details and their statements were significantly more inconsistent with the information/evidence known to/disclosed by the interviewer. The timing of the interviewer's evidence revelation had a significant effect on liars’ mentioning during their free recall of some of this information and on the total number of details mentioned in free recall.

Intimate partner violence offenders often use victim-blaming attributions to explain their own violent behavior. These attributions represent an important challenge for intervention programs for intimatepartner violence offenders. The main objectives of this study were to analyze both the influence of social support and stressful life events on the psychological adjustment (self-esteem and depressive symptomatology) of intimate partner violence offenders and the relationship between offenders’ psychological adjustment and their victim-blaming attributions. The sample consists of 314 men convicted of intimate partner violence who were referred to a community-based intervention program. Results from a structural equation model showed that social support and stressful life events were related to psychological adjustment. Psychological adjustment also was related to victim-blaming attributions among intimate partner violence offenders. A better understanding of the relationships between psychological adjustment of intimate partner violence offenders and its determinants, as well as its impact on victimblaming attributions, may provide support to new intervention strategies. Implications of these results for improving the effectiveness of intervention programs are discussed.

A study was designed to find out whether MMPI-2 validity scales and indexes differentiate between true fibromyalgia sufferers, patients with chronic organic pain and normal people, as well as whether they are correctly classified. 105 subjects participated in the study, 27 diagnosed with fibromyalgia and 44 with chronic organic pain and 34 were healthy people, who answered the MMPI-2 following standard instructions. The results showed that fibromyalgia patients scored higher than the control group in the F, Fb, F-K, Fp, Ds, and FBS scales and indexes and that patients with chronic organic pain scored higher in the Ds and FBS scales than the control group. The case study revealed that the F, Fb, F-K, Fp, Ds, and FBS scales and indexes over-diagnose malingering in patients with fibromyalgia, both in comparison with the clinical population and with the normative group. Likewise, patients with chronic organic pain were overdiagnosed as malingerers by all the scales and indexes in comparison with the normative population and by the Fp and FBS scales in comparison with the clinical population. In addition, it was found that at least one of the scales for measuring defensiveness –L, Wsd and Mp– classified 79.5% of the truly ill patients as faking good. The implications for clinical and forensic practice are discussed, as well as for the definition of decision criteria and the (re)classification as true negatives of genuine cases classified as malingerers by the malingering measuring scales and indexes.