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A growing number of self-report measures aim to define interactions with social media in a pathological behavior framework; often using terminology focused on identifying those who are ‘addicted’ to engaging with others online. Specifically, measures of ‘social media addiction’ focus on motivations for online social information seeking, many of which could be motivations for offline social information seeking. It could be the case that these same measures could reveal a pattern of friend addiction in general. This study develops the Offline-Friend Addiction Questionnaire (O-FAQ) by re-wording items from highly-cited pathological social media use scales to reflect “spending time with friends”. Our methodology for validation follows literature precedent in social media addiction scales. The O-FAQ had a three-factor solution in an exploratory sample of N=807 and these factors were stable in a four-week retest (r= .72 to .86) and was validated against personality traits, and risk-taking behavior, in conceptually plausible directions. Using the same ‘polythetic classification techniques’ as pathological social media use studies, we were able to classify 69% of our sample as addicted to spending time with their friends. The discussion of our satirical research is a critical reflection on the role of measurement and human sociality in social media research. We question the extent to which connecting with others can be considered an ‘addiction’ and issues with the validation of new ‘addiction’ measures without relevant medical constructs. Readers should approach our measure with a level of skepticism that should be afforded to current social media addiction measures

BACKGROUND:: Management of a cleft of the lip and/or palate (CL/P) involves a multidisciplinary team approach lasting from birth to potentially postskeletal maturity. This condition is complex, with both medical and psychosocial implications that may place individuals with a cleft at higher risk of developing psychosocial problems. METHODOLOGY:: A self-administered questionnaire was completed by a sample from the Western Australian cleft population comprising 3 age groups: child (n = 100), adolescent (n = 101), and adult (n = 158). RESULTS:: Public speaking, being photographed, special relationships, and participation in school were identified as the areas most impacted by having a cleft. Hearing and speech were reported to have a higher importance than facial and dental appearance. Participants rated support given to them by their parents as the most important, with high ratings for treatment providers. For teasing, the impact of cleft was significantly higher among participants with cleft lip and palate for both the adolescent and adult age groups. There was little significant difference by gender across the variables, which suggests that males are just as likely to require support as females. CONCLUSION:: The impact of a cleft across multiple psychosocial domains needs to be recognized and addressed as part of craniofacial team care across age groups.

BACKGROUND: People with a cleft of the lip and/or palate (CL/P) differ from their peers due to their facial appearance, hearing and speech difficulties, and the significant time spent attending appointments and recovering from surgical interventions. These differences may impact life outcomes including occupation, income, education, relationships, psychosocial health issues, and lifestyle choices. METHODOLOGY: A self-administered questionnaire was posted to 338 former and current patients of the Cleft Lip and Palate Unit of Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), Perth, Western Australia. RESULTS: Completed questionnaires were returned by 158 former and current patients. In comparison to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, study participants attained equivalent highest education levels, full-time annual income levels, occupational categories, employment rates, and home ownership levels. They did not marry later and demonstrated positive health-related lifestyle behaviors. However independent living was significantly delayed, and the number of romantic relationships, marriages, and children was lower, with separation/divorce rates also being lower. A key finding was that 78% of participants self-reported that they experienced at least 1 psychosocial health issue and more than half experienced anxiety and/or depression. CONCLUSION: When comparing the sociological outcomes for the study participants, the psychosocial outcomes were the areas of most concern. Further investigation is required to determine the causes for the high self-reported rates of anxiety and/or depression found in this study.

Background: The long-term care of patients with a visible appearance difference may involve many years of multidisciplinary treatment. In addition to providing the physical treatment component, support for the emotional and psychosocial implications must also be considered. The primary objective of this project was to survey healthcare professionals (HCPs) from each of the participating countries to ascertain their level of awareness and understanding of the issues facing those with visible differences, their level of confidence in supporting those patients, and their current and required level of training. Secondary objectives were to gauge the perceived importance of appearance and the psychosocial impact for individuals with visible differences. Methods: Questionnaires were completed by multidisciplinary HCPs in four European countries and Australia. Results: The results for all countries (110 participants) indicate that the majority of HCPs do not feel confident in dealing with the psychosocial needs of people with an appearance disfigurement. Conclusion: All countries identified and supported the need for training of multidisciplinary HCPs to be able to identify and support the psychosocial problems experienced by individuals and families. A collaborative future training program aimed at providing effective psychosocial support and was identified to be the most efficient mode to meet the training requirement. Provision of training will offer the knowledge base for effective psychosocial support and address the unintentional marginalization and social exclusion that may occur by untrained HCPs.

Fire is being prescribed and used increasingly to promote ecosystem restoration (e.g., oak woodlands and savannas) and to manage wildlife habitat in the Central Hardwoods and Appalachian regions, USA. However, questions persist as to how fire affects hardwood forest communities and associated wildlife, and how fire should be used to achieve management goals. We provide an up-to-date review of fire effects on various wildlife species and their habitat in the Central Hardwoods and Appalachians. Documented direct effects (i.e., mortality) on wildlife are rare. Indirect effects (i.e., changes in habitat quality) are influenced greatly by light availability, fire frequency, and fire intensity. Unless fire intensity is great enough to kill a portion of the overstory, burning in closed-canopy forests has provided little benefit for most wildlife species in the region because it doesn't result in enough sunlight penetration to elicit understory response. Canopy reduction through silvicultural treatment has enabled managers to use fire more effectively. Fire intensity must be kept low in hardwoods to limit damage to many species of overstory trees. However, wounding or killing trees with fire benefits many wildlife species by allowing increased sunlight to stimulate understory response, snag and subsequent cavity creation, and additions of large coarse woody debris. In general, a fire-return interval of 2 yr to 7 yr benefits a wide variety of wildlife species by providing a diverse structure in the understory; increasing browse, forage, and soft mast; and creating snags and cavities. Historically, dormant- season fire was most prevalent in these regions, and it still is when most prescribed fire is implemented in hardwood systems as burn-days are relatively few in the growing season of May through August because of shading from leaf cover and high fuel moisture. Late growing- season burning increases the window for burning, and better control on woody composition is possible

This document provides the full item list of the Perceptions of Sex Offenders (PSO) scale, along with scoring instructions.

Much research has examined the views held by citizens about sexual offenders and related policy responses. Although studies have extensively examined demographic correlates of such views, little attention has been paid to psychological mechanisms that underpin them. Gaining a deeper understanding of such mechanisms may ultimately prove useful for informing communication strategies around the problem of sexual violence. We propose the application of moral foundations theory as a means of exploring the roots of the current punitive consensus around sexual crime policy at the macro level, as well as individual variability in attitudes about sexual violence. Following an overview of the sexual offender policy landscape, and a description of MFT principles, we outline how this framework can help to explain both convergence and divergence in responses to sexual offending among members of the public. We also provide a series of testable hypotheses to stimulate further research in this area.

Dual-process models of decision making assume that we process information using two distinct ‘systems’: a deliberate and analytical system, and an intuitive system. This article uses 148 UK press articles about sexual crime to apply one such model – the ‘prototype-willingness’ model – to the study of social discourses about sexual crime in England and Wales. A small number of cases were significantly over-represented within the article sample (for example, the recent Jimmy Savile scandal). This finding is examined within the context of contemporary debates about sexual crime, and a model of social and political discourse is advanced. Implications for legislation and future research are discussed.

In June 2016, British voters took part in a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU). By a margin of 52%:48%, they voted to leave. Studies have demonstrated that fixed demographic factors were the best predictors of voting intentions in either direction, or that ‘Leave’ voters were driven by perceived threats from immigration. In this paper, we examine the role of moral intuitions in referendum voting intentions. In Study 1, demographic variables did not predict voting intentions after adding psychological variables to our statistical model. Instead, voting ‘Leave’ was predicted by political conservatism, social change insecurities, and placing moral importance on personal liberty. In contrast, only an adherence to the care foundation of morality predicted ‘Remain’ voting. These findings were also reflected in linguistic analyses of campaign materials and news items (Study 2). We discuss these data in relation to common discourses around the Brexit vote.

Implicit theories structure the way people understand and respond to various human actions. Typically, people believe attributes are either fixed (entitists) or malleable (incrementalists). The present study aimed to examine (a) whether attitudes toward sexual offenders differ depending upon one’s implicit theory about human nature and sexual offenders, and (b) whether implicit theories are associated with judgments made about different types of child abusers. A sample of 252 community participants was recruited. Their attitudes, implicit theories, and political orientation were assessed via self-report. One of three vignettes describing an incidence of child sexual abuse was then presented. The cases were identical except the perpetrator was either an adult male, an adult female, or a male juvenile. Participants then made judgments about the offender’s deserved sentence and moral character. Entitists (across both domains) held more negative attitudes than incrementalists, although the magnitude of the difference was greatest when examining implicit theories about sexual offenders. Compared with those with an incremental theory of sexual offenders, entity theorists judged sexual offending to be more (a) indicative of the perpetrator’s moral character and (b) deserving of punishment. However, scores were greater toward the adult male relative to the adult female and juvenile. The findings suggest that implicit theories about sexual offenders are domain specific. They also indicate that judgments made by those with an entity theory (about sexual offenders) are affected by whether a case is representative of a stereotypical sexual offender. Implications of the findings are discussed, along with limitations and future research.

Stigmatization and societal punitiveness about pedophilia has a range of potential consequences, such as the social isolation of people with sexual interest in children, and the formation of policies that are not consistent with empirical research findings. Previous research has shown that people with pedophilic sexual interests use societal thinking to self-stigmatize, which in turn may actually serve to increase their risk of committing a sexual offense. In this study, we compared two attitudinal interventions (first-person narrative vs. expert opinion) using a student sample (N =100). It was hypothesized that both interventions would lead to reductions in stigmatization and punitive attitudes about pedophiles on an explicit (self-report) level, but that only the narrative intervention would lead to reductions of these constructs at the implicit level. Our findings supported both hypotheses. We further discuss the role of narrative humanization in this area, and offer suggestions for further research based upon the theoretical and methodological implications of the findings.