The abused-abuser hypothesis posits that a history of sexual victimization may increase the risk of engaging in sexually abusive behavior for some victims. Although many researchers have discovered a higher prevalence of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in sex offenders in comparison with non-sex offenders, less research has considered how specific characteristics of prior sexual abuse may contribute to how these individuals sexually abuse others. For the present study, archival data were collected from 243 youths receiving residential treatment for sexually abusive behavior and self-reported data were collected from university students with no known history of sexual offending. The present study confirms disproportionally high rates of CSA in the sample of sexually abusive youth, compared to non-sexual abusers. Further, among the sample of sexually abusive youth, we examined the effects of sexual perpetrator characteristics and age of sexual victimization on victim choice, age at first sexual offense, and number of sexual offenses, number of arrests, and sexual victims. Results revealed associations between perpetrator characteristics and victim choice. Additionally, being sexually victimized by a male or a relative was significantly associated with a younger age of onset of sexually abusive behavior and a younger age of sexual victimization suggested a greater number of sexual victims. Implications and future directions will be explored.

Sexual violence is experienced by a number of North American women who, after being victimized, can develop a series of physical, psychological and financial consequences. As such, it is necessary to develop policies and programs that can better prevent this type of violence. This study aims to determine if the contents of the 2015 Ontario Health and Physical Education Curriculum at the 9th grade level includes central themes and components that are detailed in the literature to be needed to deter sexual violence perpetration. Through the development and application of a theoretical framework of knowledge, this research project conducted a deductive qualitative content analysis on the 2015 Ontario Health and Physical Education Curriculum. Information used to evaluate the Curriculum includes central themes identified in the literature as being pertinent to the prevention of sexual violence and the use of the social norms theory. Overall, it was determined that while the 2015 Ontario Curriculum addresses most literature themes associated with sexual violence perpetration and school-based programming, it contains certain limitations that will likely make it a less effective program.

Relational aggression (RA) is a social phenomenon that can severely impact organizational profitability and employee productivity. A gap in the literature exists concerning appropriate interventions to manage RA. The purpose of this study was to explore successful interventions that have been used to manage RA. The theoretical framework was informed by psychological contract theory. Data were collected via semistructured face-to-face interviews with 12 victims, and then analyzed using data management, reading and memorization, description, classification, interpretation, and representation. NVivo software was used to organize the data in this study. The research consisted of 3 subquestions addressing the role of written policies in interventions, common practices and reactions of management, and victims' requests for attention to grievance reports. Five key themes emerged. The first and second pertain to the proactive and reactive role of written policies. The third and fourth focus on management's negative and positive reactions in response to grievance reports. The fifth identifies victims' expectations for their grievance reports. Commonly found interventions include impartially listening to both sides, investigation, restoration of damages, social justice, and identifying root causes for RA in the workplace. Implications for positive social change include enhanced employee well-being and performance and increased organizational effectiveness. Results may lead to positive changes by providing useful information that can be implemented by organizations to prevent and address RA, which can improve employee well-being.

The Cognitive Interview (CI) has been shown in over one hundred studies to enhance eyewitness recall. However, no study has explored whether the CI improves police job performance. The current study was the first to test the practical value of the CI in a criminal investigation, testing participants’ performance on key police tasks using either a perpetrator description elicited from a CI or from a standard police interview (SI). In an earlier study, student witnesses were exposed to a simulated robbery and were then interviewed using either a CI or an SI to elicit a description of the robber (comprised of individual descriptors). In Experiment 1, a sample of student participants (N=320) completed two investigative tasks using the descriptors: (a) identifying the perpetrator from a group of ten potential suspect photographs; and (b) allocating hours among the top three potential suspects dictated by who should be the focus of the police’s time (i.e., investigative resources). Participants also subjectively assessed each descriptor’s value in terms of completing the tasks. Presentation methods to enhance the utility of the CI were also tested. Relative to the SI, the CI resulted in a near-30% increase in accurately identifying the perpetrator. Also, significantly more hours were allocated toward investigating the perpetrator using the CI as compared with the SI. Participants did not, however, subjectively value CI descriptors more than SI descriptors; and, the CI’s utility was not enhanced by the presentation methods tested. Experiment 2 sought to reproduce and generalize the CI’s effect on investigative utility by using police officers (N=71) and student participants (N=67). As in Experiment 1, the CI significantly improved investigative performance in accurately identifying the perpetrator, and in allocating resources toward investigating the perpetrator. Police and students did not significantly differ in their performance of investigative tasks or in their utility ratings of the CI descriptors. The current study was the first to find that the CI can be properly used by police in a criminal investigation. Investigating the actual perpetrator as opposed to an innocent suspect is likely to have a domino effect on subsequent phases of an investigation.

<p>Everyday thousands of children and teenagers live through the hell of bullying. This theoretical research essay describes analyses and gives a literature overview of the phenomenon of bullying from eight different ideal-typical aspects based on Max Weber’s concept of Ideal types as a tool to make text analysis. The essay also investigates and compares three studies with focus on what methodological tools the researchers have employed to come to their conclusions. With the results from this investigation the research essay discusses possible explanations to why results, conclusions and understanding on the self-concept and self-esteem of perpetrators of bullying are so contradictory between researchers. Findings suggest that differences in gender in the sample, sample-size and age-group variations could be possible explanations to why results differ between studies. The essay discusses bullying from a power theory perspective and presents thoughts on how such a perspective could be employed in future research. It also suggests more research in the sociological discipline and investigations on a contextual and organisational level considering that the present study has shown that the academic field of bullying have not been researched to a great extent from this perspective.</p>

Everyday thousands of children and teenagers live through the hell of bullying. This theoretical research essay describes analyses and gives a literature overview of the phenomenon of bullying from eight different ideal-typical aspects based on Max Weber’s concept of Ideal types as a tool to make text analysis. The essay also investigates and compares three studies with focus on what methodological tools the researchers have employed to come to their conclusions. With the results from this investigation the research essay discusses possible explanations to why results, conclusions and understanding on the self-concept and self-esteem of perpetrators of bullying are so contradictory between researchers. Findings suggest that differences in gender in the sample, sample-size and age-group variations could be possible explanations to why results differ between studies. The essay discusses bullying from a power theory perspective and presents thoughts on how such a perspective could be employed in future research. It also suggests more research in the sociological discipline and investigations on a contextual and organisational level considering that the present study has shown that the academic field of bullying have not been researched to a great extent from this perspective.

The following Bachelor’s thesis examines how three Swedish national newspapers (Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet), which all represent different points on the ideological spectrum, portray victim and perpetrator in their representation of rape during the year 2011. The thesis examines the newspapers news, editorial pages and reports of rape. The study uses a quantitative approach with qualitative elements which has its foundation in the theory of social constructivism and priming theory. Political science can be studied from the perspective of power, and media has a central role of this power. What media portrays and send out through their texts will have, and does have effect on the norms and values existing in the society. Therefore, it is of high importance to identify which discourse of rape these three newspapers sends out to the Swedish society during the year of 2011, after the many discussions of how rape is portrayed and that it seems to exist a discourse where one blame the victim herself for being raped. This study has shown that the focus has shifted from the victim to the perpetrator, which also has consequences, even though the focus still is on the victim but not to the same degree as before.

Although  “naming and shaming” paedophiles are growing in Sweden, professionals working with the rehabilitation and treatment of paedophiles describe that the naming and shaming might not prevent child sex abuse. On the opposite naming and shaming alienates the perpetrator from any ordinary life. The alienation could lead them to only having other paedophiles as friends. Previous studies show that professionals are often distancing themselves from working with paedophiles, even if there is competence. Studies also show that paedophiles are seldom seeking help due to of fear of stigmatization. The aim of this study was to describe social workers perception of “paedophiles” and to find out the action contingency among social workers regarding clients that express such feelings. A qualitative method with semi-structured interviews was used. Seven social workers and one psychologist were interviewed. Previous research has been confirmed as many professionals actively choose not to work with perpetrators even though they believe the perpetrators deserve adequate help. The data was analysed referring to Hasenfelds theory of human service organizations and the concept of cognitive dissonance. Organizations that are not specifically built to treat perpetrators and paedophiles are apparently not prepared to help them.

The thesis is a descriptive study of female perpetrators of murder as viewed from the individual level, primarily focusing on the characteristics of the offender which could affect the murder, and the context of the murderous act. Following a theoretical examination, the empirical section presents the results of research in women's prison using an integrated research methodology of qualitative but also quantitative techniques of data collection and interpretation. The primary research analyzed prison's documents about murderers with the research sample consisting of all imprisoned women ie half of all incarcerated women in the Czech Republic. In-depth interviews were carried out with predominantly perpetrators of intimate homicides; other data collection techniques were used. The data detected the forms of murderous behavior of women, the typology of murder by motivation, mapping the social situation of female convicts in prison, selected attitudes of homicide offenders including the analysis of family murders. The results indicated that the prototype of homicides committed by women are intimate murders that fall within the largest group of intrafamily murder. The most common cause is a partner homicide conflict situations, long-term domestic violence and excessive alcohol consumption for both...

Magister Educationis - Med / According to Morrison (2007), bullying is considered a critical issue in the Western Cape Schools as well as in South African schools in general. This phenomenon of bullying can affect learners in schools and may lead to several problems such as low esteem, poor academic performance, depression, absenteeism and eventually dropping out of school. In addition, numerous studies in psychology have revealed that physical activity has positive effects on learners, (Ajay, 2011; Shaffer, 2002). This is because it increases self-esteem in learners, boosts confidence and builds the physical, social, emotional, moral and intellectual composition in an individual. This study will aim (1) to determine the relationship between bullying and physical activity among South African learners in one high school in the Western Cape, (2) to measure the frequency of bullying at that high school, (3) to measure the frequency of bully-victimization in the school among South African learners in that high school in the Western Cape, and (4) to establish the level of physical activity by the learners in the high school. This study used a quantitative method and a descriptive survey as research design. The participants were mostly black South African adolescent learners, aged between 14 and 20 years.