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Personality Patterns and Outcomes Indices of Juvenile Sex Offenders

Dr. Carl B. Clements, UA
Purpose: to examine a unique data set based on comprehensive pre-treatment assessment of juvenile sex offenders and to assist in developing outcome measures that go beyond traditional court based recidivism data.
 

Psychopathy, Intellectual and Emotional Functioning, and Violent and Non-Violent Recidivism 

Dr. Randy Salekin, UA 

Focus:  To examine the relationship between psychopathy, intelligence and affective functioning using a battery of tasks that tap limbic system functioning.  Additionally, this study will investigate the relationship between psychopathy, intelligence, emotion and criminal behavior. 

Exposure to Violence and Adolescent Development in an Inner City Sample of Adolescents Living in Extreme Poverty

Drs. Richard Spano and John Bolland, UA
Focus:  To examine the effects of exposure to violence on adolescent development in a sample of inner city youth living in extreme poverty using longitudinal data from the Mobile Youth Survey (MYS) an ongoing, multiple cohort longitudinal study of adolescents living in extreme poverty in the Mobile-Prichard inner city. 

Hopelessness & Violence

Dr. John Bolland, UA
Focus: To study a sample of youths in Mobile public housing to investigate the correlation between hopelessness and violence; further evaluations will examine successful adaptation, resilience, and exposure to high-risk environments.

Classroom Environment Effects on Aggression

Dr. Joan M. Barth , UA
Focus: To investigate how children's earliest school experiences might set the stage for aggressive behavior later on in school. Kindergarten classroom levels of aggression, task orientation, & language ability are used to predict individual children's behaviors in kindergarten and first grade.

Anger and Stress and Physiological Outcomes in Teachers

Dr. Marti H. Rice, UAB
Focus: To document levels of anger, stress, coping and methods of anger expressions in teachers both in general and related specifically to the classroom. Also, determine the effects of level of anger and methods of anger expression on blood pressure and cortisol levels during a period of high stress.

Psychophysiological and Social-Cognitive Correlates of Subtypes of Aggression

Nancy Phillips & Dr. John Lochman, UA

Focus: To identify physiological and social cognitive factors associated with children who display subtypes of aggressive behavior compared to children who display normally aggressive behavior.

Parental Influences on bullying and Victimization Among Young, Economically Disadvantaged Children

Dr. Mary Elizabeth Courtner-Smith,  Drs. Rex and Anne Culp, UA
Focus:  To identify parental contributions to bullying and victimization behaviors in young, economically disadvantaged children.  This study will seek to determine if young children’s aggression can be predicted independently or jointly, by a lack of maternal warmth, high reports of maternal anger, maternal endorsement of harsh discipline, and maternal values of aggression as a way to solve conflict.  Moreover, this study will use a series of telephone interviews to examine whether children’s peer status is related to the quality of advice that mothers give to their children about how to deal with incidents of bullying and victimization. 

Tendencies to Minimize Effects of Violent Behavior

Drs. Mary Ellen Maxwell and Dorina Miron
Focus:  Critical thinking (focus groups) and creative art will be used as interventions to determine if they affect junior high school students’ tendencies to minimize media-induced effects of violent behavior.  This study looks at higher central processing, mobilization of prior knowledge, and structuring of information and emotions for their persuasive effects against minimizing media violence. 

Experience of Abuse and Substance Use Behaviors in a Sample of Shelter Women

Dr. Maja Altarac, UAB
Focus: The primary objective is to document and describe the relationship between substance abuse, especially illicit substance abuse, and women’s unique experiences of abuse, looking closely at temporal relationship between substance use and experience of abuse.  Furthermore, the study will explore the risk factors around initiation and escalation of substance abuse, and protective factors for women with no history of illicit substance abuse.

Enforcement of Juvenile Curfew Laws and Impact on Violent and Non-Violent Juvenile Trauma

Dr. Paul MacLennan, UAB
Focus:  To examine the relationship between emergency medical services transports of injured youth with county level enforcement of juvenile curfew laws. In addition, this study, covering the years 1999 through 2002, will be longitudinal and ecological in nature and the study population will be counties (N=67) within the state of Alabama

Preschool Children’s Social Behaviors on the Playground:  Parenting Correlates

Rex E. Culp, PhD, JD, Anne M. Culp, PhD,Mary Liz Curtner-Smith, PhD
Focus:  To identify behaviors in 4-year-old children forms of social behaviors including hostile and relational aggression occurring in a natural setting – a school playground.   Pilot work evaluated the efficacy of videotaping and audio taping as a method for assessing social behaviors including early aggression on a playground setting.  Methodological issues and confidentiality issues were resolved.  Subsequently, child aggressive behaviors, both physical and verbal, and victim behaviors were linked to parenting characteristics and teacher reports of aggression.  Parenting was assessed employing computer presented parenting vignettes to elicit mothers’ reactions to the parenting dilemmas.  This measure along with a measure of spousal conflict was correlated with early forms of aggression and victimization of children.  The early identification of aggressive behaviors and their associated parenting practices and spousal conflict would enable early child programs to modify their curricula to intervene at this early point in development.

 

 

 

 

 

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