Biomedical subjects

J Langhinrichsen-Rohling

Publications and source records attributed to J Langhinrichsen-Rohling.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

Can questionnaire reports correctly classify relationship distress and partner physical abuse?

Relationship adjustment (e.g., Dyadic Adjustment Scale; DAS) and physical aggression (e.g., Conflict Tactics Scale) measures are used both as screening tools and as the sole criterion for classification. This study created face valid diagnostic interviews for relationship distress and physical abuse, through which one could compare preliminarily the classification properties of questionnaire reports. The DAS (and a global measure of relationship satisfaction) had modest agreement with a structured diagnostic interview; both questionnaires tended to overdiagnose distress compared with the interview. Results for partner abuse reiterated the need to go beyond occurrence of aggression as the sole diagnostic criterion, because men's aggression was more likely than women's to rise to the level of "abuse" when diagnostic criteria (injury or substantial fear) were applied.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Breaking up is hard to do: unwanted pursuit behaviors following the dissolution of a romantic relationship.

This study investigated the prevalence and predictors of unwanted pursuit behaviors among college students. Participants (n = 282) had experienced the termination of a meaningful romantic relationship. Two questionnaires were administered. One assessed unwanted pursuit behaviors that were perpetrated by individuals who had not initiated the relationship breakup (breakup sufferers; n = 120); the other assessed individuals who had initiated the relationship breakup (relationship dissolvers; n = 162). Results indicated that most breakup sufferers had engaged in at least one act of unwanted pursuit (i.e., unwanted phone calls, unwanted in-person conversations) after the breakup. Breakup sufferers were more likely than relationship dissolvers to perceive a positive impact from their unwanted pursuit behavior. Partner-specific attachment experiences and love styles emerged as significant predictors of unwanted pursuit behavior perpetration, according to both victims and perpetrators of unwanted pursuit. However, only victims of unwanted pursuit revealed an association between levels of relationship violence and unwanted pursuit behavior perpetration. Victims also reported that their unwanted pursuit was related to a lack of friendship between themselves and their expartners. In contrast, there was a positive association between feelings of friendship and unwanted pursuit for perpetrators. The implications of these findings and their application to the stalking literature are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

Negative family-of-origin experiences: are they associated with perpetrating unwanted pursuit behaviors?

Parental divorce, history of parental relationship separation, perceptions of interparental conflict, and witnessing parental violence were retrospectively assessed in a sample of 213 college students from several regions in the United States, all of whom had suffered an unwanted break-up of an important romantic relationship. This study investigated whether these family-of-origin experiences were associated with perpetrating unwanted pursuit behaviors after the relationship break-up. Results indicated that male participants who had experienced either parental divorce or separation perpetrated more severe unwanted pursuit behavior than males who had not experienced parental divorce or separation or females from either divorced, separated, or intact families. For females, severe unwanted pursuit behavior perpetration was correlated with threatening and intense parental arguments. These findings suggest that a variety of types of negative parental relationship behavior may be risk factors for perpetrating severe unwanted pursuit behaviors. The gender-specificity and implications of these findings are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1999

The dangerous nature of intimate relationship stalking: threats, violence, and associated risk factors.

Although previous studies of forensic and law enforcement stalking populations (Harmon, Rosner, & Owens, 1995; Meloy & Gothard, 1995; Zona, Sharma, & Lane, 1993) agree that the degree of intimacy of the victim-suspect relationship is an important factor in stalking cases, they have not conducted in-depth analyses of this variable. This study compared 223 intimate (n=135) and non-intimate (n=88) stalking cases managed by the Los Angeles Police Department's Threat Management Unit. A path analysis revealed a significant relationship between the stalkers' intimate versus non-intimate status and violence committed toward persons and property. This relationship was positively influenced by the suspect's level of proximity to the victim and threats toward the victim and property, but not influenced by suspect's criminal, psychiatric, and domestic violence histories. Overall, intimate relationship stalkers used more dangerous stalking behaviors than non-intimate relationship stalkers. Risk factors for assessing dangerousness of stalkers are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Gender and history of suicidality: are these factors related to U.S. college students' current suicidal thoughts, feelings, and actions?

Gender and history of suicidality (HS vs. NoHS) were related to current symptoms of depression, reasons for living, and reports of self-destructive and life-threatening behavior in a college student sample. Overall, college men reported engaging in more life-threatening and potentially suicidal behavior than college women on the Life Attitudes Schedule (LAS). No gender effects were obtained on the symptoms of depression and reasons for living measures. Results suggest that the LAS may be a particularly effective way to identify college students at risk for self-destructive and suicidal behavior. As expected, HS individuals were more depressed, had fewer reasons for living, and reported engaging in more current suicidal and life-threatening behavior than NoHS participants. However, gender and history of suicidality were found to interact. NoHS women reported avoiding a variety of injury-producing and health-diminishing behaviors that were common for all other groups of college students. Meanwhile, HS women endorsed fewer current reasons for living than did NoHS women, NoHS men, and NoHS men. These findings were interpreted both with regard to cultural and gender-specific expectations for the expression of self-destructive, suicidal, and life-threatening behavior. Implications for the prevention of college women's and men's suicidal behavior were also noted.

Adult↗

PubMed1996

The Life Attitudes Schedule Short Form: an abbreviated measure of life-enhancing and life-threatening behaviors in adolescents.

An abbreviated version of the Life Attitudes Schedule (LAS) was developed, consisting of 24 items, each representing one cell of the original LAS theoretical matrix (4 content categories x 2 behavior types x 2 valence). Items were retained on the basis of high correlations with LAS total score and low correlations with gender. Psychometric properties of the LAS Short Form were robust and the Short Form total score correlated .93 with the original LAS total score. As with the original LAS, boys reported more injury-related behaviors than girls. Future research and clinical directions are suggested.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1995

Money matters: A meta-analytic review of the association between financial compensation and the experience and treatment of chronic pain.

Meta-analytic procedures were used to determine the relation between disability compensation and pain. Of the 157 relevant identified studies, only 32 contained quantifiable data from treatment and control groups. The majority of these exclusively examined chronic low back pain patients (72%). Overall, 136 comparisons were obtained, on the basis of 3,802 pain patients and 3,849 controls. Liberal procedures for estimating effect sizes (ESs) yielded an ES of .60 (p < .0002). Conservative procedures yielded an ES of .48 (p < .0005). Both ESs differed from zero, indicating that compensation is related to increased reports of pain and decreased treatment efficacy. These results are interpreted in light of current models of pain. Health policy implications are also discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1995

The life attitudes schedule: a scale to assess adolescent life-enhancing and life-threatening behaviors.

The purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire to measure suicidal and other risk-taking behaviors, the Life Attitudes Schedule (LAS), and to test a theoretical model that postulates a single domain of behaviors to which all life-threatening and life-enhancing behaviors belong. The LAS was developed and piloted on 1539 high school students and young adults. The schedule measures four different content categories: death related, health related, injury related, and self-related. Each content category includes an equal number of items designed to assess actions, thoughts, and feelings. Consistent with the theoretical model, the LAS includes positive (life-enhancing) and negative (life-threatening) behaviors. In this paper we present psychometric information for the LAS. The results are interpreted as providing support for a broad, bipolar conceptualization of suicidal and other risk-taking behavior that encompasses life-threatening and life-enhancing behaviors.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1994

Are bi-directionally violent couples mutually victimized? A gender-sensitive comparison.

Mutual victimization in marriage was studied in a sample of clinic couples (N = 57) where both spouses reported partner aggression on an adapted version of the Conflict Tactics Scale (Straus, 1979). As predicted, wives sustained more injuries and were more negatively affected by their partner's physical aggression than did husbands. Multiple dimensions of aggression were used to identify subgroups of mutually victimized couples (e.g., frequency, severity of aggressive act[s], psychological impact, and severity of injury). The largest subgroup consisted of spouses who reported low levels of victimization on all dimensions. Subgroup 2 included couples in which wives reported higher overall levels of victimization than did their husbands. A third small subgroup was also identified where husbands reported higher levels of victimization than did their wives. Contrary to prediction, both highly victimized wives and highly victimized husbands in the asymmetrical victimization subgroups reported greater levels of relationship and individual distress than did spouses in the mutual/low victimization and nonaggression control groups. However, the marriages of the two highly victimized subgroups did differ in important ways. The findings were interpreted to suggest an integration of feminist and dyadic theories of marital aggression.

Adult↗