Ernest N. Jouriles - US grants

This is a Shannon Award providing partial support for the research projects that fall short of the assigned institute's funding range but are in the margin of excellence. The Shannon Award is intended to provide support to test the feasibility of the approach; develop further tests and refine research techniques; perform secondary analysis of available data sets; or conduct discrete projects that can demonstrate the PI's research capabilities or lend additional weight to an already meritorious application. The abstract below is taken from the original document submitted by the principal investigator. The primary purpose of the proposed research is to evaluate a multi- component intervention designed to reduce conduct problems exhibited by children of battered women. Subjects will be 160 families (mothers and children) who have sought refuge at a shelter for battered women, are in the process of setting up a residence independent of their violent partners, and have a preschool-aged child exhibiting aggressive/oppositional behavior. Families will be randomly assigned to either an intervention or comparison condition. The intervention will have two primary components: (1) teaching mothers child-management skills, and (2) providing mothers and children with social and instrumental support. Treatment sessions will be conducted weekly in the families' homes and will last for up to 8 months. The comparison condition consists of existing services. All families will participate in an initial comprehensive assessment which will include measurements of child conduct problems, mothers' parenting skills, mothers' psychological distress, and mothers' social contacts. Initial assessments will take place as soon as possible following a family's departure from the shelter. Follow-up assessments will be conducted at 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 months following the initial assessment.

The proposed research is designed to modify, refine, and pilot an intervention to reduce abuse within the context of adolescent romantic relationships. This research is comprised of two phases. During Phase One we will complete the manualization of the intervention, meet with adolescents about the content of our existing manual, and conduct two pilot iterations of the intervention. During Phase Two we will conduct a comprehensive pilot of the intervention. Participants in this comprehensive pilot will be 400 adolescents (13 to 17, inclusive) recruited from community agencies in Houston, Texas and Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Adolescents will be randomly assigned either to the intervention or to a no-treatment control condition. The intervention will last for approximately 2 months, and will consist of 18 group meetings (8-10 adolescents/group). All adolescents will participate in an initial assessment and three follow-up assessments scheduled at two-month intervals. The assessments will include the measurement of abusive behavior in romantic relationships, beliefs about the use of physical aggression and other forms of abusive behavior in romantic relationships, interpersonal communication and problem-solving skills, beliefs about the use of violence in general, and general antisocial behavior. Assessment methods will include self-report, partner-report, and observational measures of behavior.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The primary goal of the proposed research is to advance our understanding of the relation between domestic violence and child problems, with an emphasis on children's aggressive behavior. We plan to address a number of important conceptual and methodological limitations of existing research that constrain our ability to interpret or generalize knowledge on this topic. In addition, we will examine pathways by which domestic violence is theorized to exert its detrimental effects on children; and, importantly, we will evaluate the contribution of domestically violent men to child problems (beyond the effects of their domestic violence). Participants will be 1000 children aged 7-9 years, their mothers, and mothers' partners (in families in which mothers and partners live together). The sample will be comprised of three demographically comparable groups. The first group will include 400 children whose mothers sought shelter because of recent domestic violence. The second group will consist of 400 children whose mothers experienced recent domestic violence but have not sought shelter. The third group will include 200 children not exposed to domestic violence. Each family will participate in 3 assessments over a 12-month period; the assessments will be spaced by approximately 6 months. The assessments will include measurements of domestic violence, proximal context variables directly related to the domestic violence, family milieu variables, child responses hypothesized to mediate the relation between domestic violence and child problems, maternal and partner emotional functioning and parenting, and children's aggressive behavior and internalizing problems.

Adolescent partner violence (APV) is an important social and health problem with potentially dire consequences. Youth exposure to IPV is also a problem, and children from families characterized by IPV, compared to children from nonviolent families, are more likely to act violently toward their own dating partners and spouses. However, not all youth exposed to IPV go on to act violently toward others. In fact, although the witnessing of IPV increases risk for perpetration of APV, many youth who witness IPV do not become violent in their intimate relationships. Unfortunately, very little is known about why some youth in families characterized by IPV are violent in later relationships, while others are not. The primary goals of the proposed research are to (a) identify potentially malleable variables that predict APV perpetration over a period of 6 months in a sample of youth whose families are characterized by IPV, (b) evaluate the utility of conceptual models derived from empirical research and theory for predicting the perpetration of APV, and (c) develop and test a comprehensive conceptual model that subsumes other, more circumscribed models for predicting the perpetration of APV. The proposed research will recruit and follow approximately 240 14- to 17-year-olds over a 6- month period. Adolescents and their mothers will be recruited from agencies providing services to families characterized by IPV (DV agencies, courts). Comprehensive assessments will be conducted at two separate time points, 3 months apart. Phone assessments of APV will be conducted every 2 weeks throughout the 6-month participation period. Specifically, each comprehensive assessment will be followed by a 6-month series of telephone contacts with the adolescents to obtain data on APV. During each of the comprehensive assessments, data will be collected directly from the adolescents, their mothers, and a friend nominated by the adolescents. During the biweekly assessments, data will be collected from the adolescents. This research will offer insights into the processes that shape the etiology of APV for adolescents growing up in highly stressful circumstances. In addition to its contributions to science, the proposed research will inform intervention and prevention programs designed for adolescents from violent homes. Identification of risk and protective factors and the processes by which they predict APV will facilitate the development of targeted interventions designed to prevent or arrest the development of APV.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Teen relationship violence (TRV) can pose immediate and serious threats to a teen's physical and mental health. Many high schools offer violence prevention programs, but few have been rigorously evaluated, and of the few that have demonstrated positive effects in reducing rates of violence, most are lengthy and/or require highly trained facilitators. In short, there is a need to develop cost-effective methods for preventing TRV. The proposed research will evaluate an innovative online bystander intervention, which has the potential to be much more cost-effective than current programs designed to prevent TRV. We will recruit 240 high-school students, grades 9-12, who will be randomly assigned to the online bystander intervention condition or to an online control condition. There will be 3 primary assessment points (baseline, post-treatment, 6-month follow-up). In addition to using standard methods of assessing bystander behavior, the proposed research will use an innovative observational assessment of bystander behavior that makes use of virtual reality. We believe this new method has the potential to offer stronger evidence of program efficacy than self-report methods alone. Furthermore, the proposed research is designed to gain insights into mediators and moderators of treatment effects. If the online intervention increases bystander behavior in a manner that deters TRV, or if it reduces teens' TRV perpetration, this research will lay the groundwork for a large-scale evaluation of the intervention. An effective online program would have enormous potential in efforts to reduce TRV, because it could be implemented broadly and cost-effectively.

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Sexual violence, which includes both sexual coercion and assault, is a significant problem on college campuses due to its high prevalence and adverse consequences. Many campuses offer sexual violence prevention programs, but few have been rigorously evaluated. Of the few that have demonstrated positive effects in reducing rates of violence, most are costly to disseminate broadly (e.g., they require highly trained facilitators and/or are offered only to small groups of students at a time). In short, there is a need to develop methods for preventing sexual violence on college campuses that are cost-effective for delivery to large groups of students. The proposed research will evaluate an innovative video bystander program, which has the potential to be implemented broadly and cost-effectively across college campuses. In addition, the proposed research will attempt to evaluate an innovative methodology for assessing bystander behavior that makes use of virtual reality technology. We believe this new method has the potential to offer stronger and more definitive evidence of program effects than self-report methods alone, which are the current state-of-the-art method for assessing bystander behavior. We will recruit 1,000 first-year college students-250 students will be recruited from each of 4 college campuses (Southern Methodist University, Marquette University, William Paterson University, and Stony Brook University). After a baseline assessment, students will be randomly assigned to view one of two video programs: TakeCARE (the video bystander program) or a control video program. A post-treatment assessment will be completed within a week of viewing the video program, and follow-up assessments will be completed 2 months and 6 months after baseline. The proposed research is also designed to identify possible mediators (e.g., increasing confidence that one can do something) and moderators (e.g., sex, campus climate) of program effects, program effects on participants' own violence (perpetration and victimization) and possible adverse consequences of bystander behavior. The problem of sexual violence on college campuses is complex, but depending on the findings, this research could have an enormous impact on efforts to address this problem.

Project Summary Over 60% of 12-17 year olds directly experience interpersonal violence in their lifetimes, and rates are even higher in disadvantaged neighborhoods. A wealth of data links youth interpersonal violence exposure to maladjustment. In middle adolescence, this includes problems with emotion regulation, interpersonal functioning, mental health, and health risk behaviors. Yet, not all violence-exposed adolescents develop problems; and many theorists and researchers consider the violence dynamics of betrayal, stigmatization, and powerlessness (BSP) to play a central role in determining which violence-exposed youth will develop problems. BSP may be especially malignant for adolescents, because they are thought to impede core developmental tasks associated with establishing healthy relationships and regulating emotion. Such difficulties, in turn, can increase risk for mental health and interpersonal problems. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of developmentally informed research on violence exposure, BSP, and psychosocial adjustment during middle adolescence, leaving critical gaps in knowledge about: (a) relations between violence exposure and BSP during adolescence; and (b) how BSP dynamics contribute to adolescents? mental health or interpersonal problems. One reason for this gap is methodological limitations in the measures and procedures available to assess BSP among adolescents. Perhaps the most significant limitation is a nearly exclusive reliance on retrospective, self-report questionnaires that lack developmental sensitivity. The proposed study will employ virtual reality (VR) technology to create real-time, ecologically valid, and engaging assessments of BSP. This will be the first attempt to provide real-time assessments of BSP dynamics within age-salient interpersonal contexts. Whereas questionnaire measures ask adolescents to make abstract, summative assessments about BSP, VR allows researchers to observe their enactment in age-salient interactions. Findings will improve knowledge of how adolescents manifest BSP in everyday life, which could help bridge meta-theories about violence dynamics with mid-level theories connecting observable manifestations of BSP to concurrent and subsequent adjustment. The VR assessment will be easily portable, so it can be disseminated broadly to researchers to further advance theory and research on the cascading effects of violence exposure on mental health and the negotiation of stage-salient tasks during adolescence and into adulthood. Additionally, given the importance of these dynamics in evidence-based treatments with violence-exposed youth, this method can be incorporated in clinical research designed to offer new insights in how these treatments work.