Perceptions of Psychological Abuse: The Role of Perpetrator Gender, Victim's Response, and Sexism.

It is commonly assumed that male abuse is more damaging than female abuse, just as it previously has been assumed that physical abuse is more harmful than psychological abuse. We sought to examine gender assumptions given that they may cause people to overlook the harm that men experience with a psychologically abusive partner. The current experiment compared perceptions of male and female perpetrators of psychological abuse, and examined whether gendered perceptions were affected by sexist beliefs or participants' own sex.

Registered Replication Report: Hart & Albarracín (2011).

Language can be viewed as a complex set of cues that shape people's mental representations of situations. For example, people think of behavior described using imperfective aspect (i.e.

Personal standards for judging aggression by a relationship partner: How much aggression is too much?

What determines whether people tolerate partner aggression? This research examined how norms, relationship experiences, and commitment predict personal standards for judging aggressive acts by a partner. Studies 1a and 1b (n = 689) revealed that experiencing aggression in a current relationship and greater commitment predicted greater tolerance for common partner aggression. Study 2 longitudinally tracked individuals who had never experienced partner aggression (n = 52).

Perceived discrimination is a potential contributing factor to substance use and mental health problems among primary care patients in Chile.

Objectives: Perceived discrimination is a prevalent problem that has been linked to negative health outcomes for victims. The goal of this research was to examine whether perceived discrimination within the past 6 months was related to 6-month prevalence of problem drinking, illicit drug use, major depressive disorder (MDD), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a sample of primary care patients in Chile.

Methods: Structured diagnostic assessments were administered to assess for MDD and PTSD using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview.

College women's perceived risk to experience sexual victimization: a prospective analysis.

This study implemented a prospective design to explore college women's perceived risk to experience sexual victimization over a 2-month interim (N = 143). Compared to women without such histories, women with a history of unwanted sexual contact via arguments/ pressure, or a history of unwanted sexual intercourse via administration of alcohol/drugs reported higher perceived risk to subsequently experience these forms of victimization. Compared to women who were not victimized, women who subsequently experienced unwanted sexual intercourse via administration of alcohol/drugs or arguments/pressure reported higher levels of risk to experience these forms of victimization.

Rates of trauma-informed counseling at substance abuse treatment facilities: reports from over 10,000 programs.

Objective: Trauma-informed treatment increasingly is recognized as an important component of service delivery. This study examined differences in treatment-related characteristics of facilities that offer moderate or high levels of trauma-informed counseling versus those that offer no or low levels of such counseling.

Methods: Responses from 13,223 substance abuse treatment facilities surveyed in 2009 by the National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (NSSATS) were used.

An interpersonally based intervention for low-income pregnant women with intimate partner violence: a pilot study.

This study assessed the initial feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of an intervention aimed at reducing depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a sample of low-income pregnant women with recent intimate partner violence (IPV). Fifty-four women were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. The intervention consisted of four sessions during pregnancy and one "booster" session within 2 weeks of delivery.

Factors associated with acceptance of psychological aggression against women.

Are emotionally aggressive conflicts perceived to be more unacceptable than conflicts involving verbal or baseline levels of psychological aggression? Participants (n = 189) read a hypothetical marital conflict that varied the husband's level of aggression. Results show that participants did not perceive the perpetrator's behavior in the emotional aggression condition to be any worse than the verbal aggression condition and, in most cases, no worse than the baseline condition. More traditional participants and participants who were perpetrators of psychological aggression had more positive perceptions of the perpetrator; just world beliefs and participant sex did not predict perceptions.

Homophobia and sexism: the pros and cons to an integrative approach.

Madureira's (Integr Psych Behav, 42(23), 2007) article on the cultural barriers of homophobia articulates the need for an integrative approach to the study of homophobia and sexism. This comment focuses on critically examining the similarities and differences between homophobia and sexism. Sexism and homophobia are related concepts--both likely stem from a patriarchic social structure with specific expectations for the proper roles of men and women--but they are also distinct in important ways.

Targets of partner violence: the importance of understanding coping trajectories.

Partner violence causes many negative outcomes for the target of the violence. Preventing negative outcomes in part hinges on altogether preventing the violence from occurring. There have been advances in violence prevention that the authors briefly review.