Browsing by Author "Bruer, Kaila"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Open Access
Classifying men who perpetrate intimate partner violence: A 50-year systematic review and a new typology applicable to case management
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2024-11) Giesbrecht, Crystal Joy; Bruer, Kaila; Keown, Leslie Anne; Jones, Nick; Vaughan, Adam; Hilton, Zoe; Scott, Katreena
This dissertation includes two studies: a systematic review of typologies of perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV) and a new typology of men who perpetrated IPV created using assessment data collected with the Service Planning Instrument (SPIn™). The systematic review included 177 typologies contained in 201 articles published between 1974 and 2024. Typologies in the review comprised: 1) family-only and generally violent; 2) family-only, generally violent, and borderline/dysphoric; 3) family-only, generally violent, low-level antisocial, and borderline/dysphoric; 4) severity and frequency of violence; 5) reactive and instrumental, 6) situational couple violence and coercive control; 7) personality types; 8) other typologies (e.g., treatment responsivity, physiological reactivity); and 9) perpetrators of intimate partner femicide. These typologies are summarized and compared, and findings from studies that examined recidivism and treatment outcomes by typology are reported. The new typology was created using data from 7,781 men in Alberta, Canada, who had been identified as having perpetrated IPV using the SPIn. Men in the sample were classified using seven indicator variables linked to general and IPV recidivism in empirical research and available in the SPIn: criminal history, failure while on conditions, violations of protection or no-contact orders, procriminal attitudes, antisocial peers, social/cognitive skills, and aggression/violence. The resulting typology included three classes: High Criminal History—High Antisocial Attitudes (18.5%; n = 1,439), High Criminal History—Low Antisocial Attitudes (51.6%; n = 4,015), and Low Criminal History—Low Antisocial Attitudes (29.9%; n = 2,327). Both classes with high criminal history report a greater prevalence of static variables relating to criminal history; the most notable difference between these two types is that the High Criminal History—High Antisocial Attitudes class scores high on variables relating to antisocial attitudes, whereas the High Criminal History—Low Antisocial Attitudes class does not. Individuals in the Low Criminal History—Low Antisocial Attitudes class have a low probability of all seven indicator variables. The three classes were compared on external variables linked to general and IPV recidivism (including history of violence, substance misuse, childhood trauma, mental health conditions, homicidal ideation, and employment problems). The High Criminal History—High Antisocial Attitudes class displayed the highest prevalence of all external variables (i.e., additional risk factors), the Low Criminal History—Low Antisocial Attitudes class had the lowest rates, and the High Criminal History—Low Antisocial Attitudes class scored intermediate to the other two classes. The three classes were also compared on four dichotomous measures of reoffending (any recidivism, technical violations, new non-violent offence, and new violent offence) at both one and three years. The High Criminal History—High Antisocial Attitudes class displayed the highest rate of recidivism on all four measures. The High Criminal History—Low Antisocial Attitudes class had a slightly lower prevalence than the High Criminal History—High Antisocial Attitudes class on all recidivism measures. The Low Criminal History—Low Antisocial Attitudes class had low rates of all forms of recidivism. Given the distinct differences between the three classes in terms of static and dynamic risk factors (i.e., criminogenic needs) and risk for reoffending, this typology is expected to have clinical utility for case management with men who have perpetrated IPV. Recommendations for risk management (e.g., supervision) and risk reduction (e.g., treatment/intervention programs) are discussed. Keywords: intimate partner violence, domestic violence, typology, perpetrators, systematic review, latent class analysis
Open Access
Examining the effects of legal articulation in memory accuracy
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2022-12) Trott, Kelsey Colin; Bruer, Kaila; MacLennan, Richard; Phenix, Tom; Gacek, James
The present research investigated the effects of legal articulation on police cadet memory performance in applied contexts. Legal articulation is a memory retrieval framework used by police officers to recall their actions for legal procedures and courtroom testimony. This research compared the level of detail (quantity) and accuracy (quality) of police cadet’s memories for a low-stress crime event under two different memory retrieval frameworks: legal articulation and serial recall. The findings can be used to guide police training programs to use procedures that support reliable memory recalls. No significant differences were found after the initial retrieval; however, significant differences were found in both quantity and quality of recall after a one-day delay. When serial recall was used initially to recall the event, the final retrieval was significantly more detailed and accurate than participants that initially recalled the event using legal articulation. These findings can be used to assist police agencies in their formal applied training programs for police officers.
Open Access
Metamemory and Lineup Selection: Can Children’s Metacognitive Beliefs Influence Lineup Selection?
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2021-05) Adams, Alyssa Susan; Oriet, Chris; Price, Heather; Bruer, Kaila; Phenix, Tom; Pica, Emily
Child eyewitnesses pose a continuous challenge for the criminal justice system. Researchers have made repeated attempts to combat children’s problematic over-choosing from a photographic lineup (e.g., Pozzulo & Lindsay, 1999), but difficulties remain. Although there have been multiple hypotheses put forth that attempt to explain why children struggle with correctly rejecting target-absent lineups (i.e., saying the perpetrator is not there when s/he is not), none have fully explained the reason for children’s error patterns (Dunlevy & Cherryman, 2013; Pozzulo & Lindsay, 1997). One possibility is that children overestimate the accuracy of their own memory. Children often exhibit similar levels of metacognitive abilities as adults; however, children have been repeatedly shown to be overconfident in their lineup decisions (Keast et al., 2007). Assuming appropriate metacognitive function, this overconfidence may be a result of children’s failure to consider factors that could disconfirm their lineup decision, and they may need to be explicitly informed of the complexity of an eyewitness identification. Providing children with such a warning after a lineup identification has been previously shown to result in only a slight reduction in overconfidence (Keast et al., 2007). In the present study, child participants were placed into one of three conditions (control, metacognition, and metacognition + warning) to determine if reflection on metamemory beliefs in combination with a warning on memory fallibility would influence their photographic lineup choosing behaviour. Although there was some indication that those who believed they were generally good at the task chose with a higher frequency, there was no indication that this belief was related to the accuracy of those choices. Those who were choosers were significantly more inaccurate than the non-chooser’s, and overall the instruction manipulations were unsuccessful. More work needs to be done to determine if children’s prospective beliefs on memory can subsequently influence their performance during recognition memory tasks.
Open Access
Relative state and decision making under risk
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2022-06) Fogg, Cody Joseph; Mishra, Sandeep; Phenix, Tom; Bruer, Kaila; Pennycook, Gordon; Childs, Jason
The recently developed (and mathematically formalized) relative state model of risk-taking suggests that individuals are motivated by two non-independent pathways to risk-taking: a need-based pathway, wherein risk-taking is the preferable course of action because a non-risky decision fails to meet an individual’s needs; and an ability-based pathway, wherein risk-taking is the preferable course of action because individuals are in such a good state that taking risks offers a higher expected value than non-risky alternatives. I tested the predictive value of the relative state model using a modified version of the Ecological Decision Task (ECO Task; Mishra & Lalumière, 2010), which asked participants to “forage” apples from trees which differ in the outcome variance associated with the outcomes, such that the yellow tree provides 10 or 11 apples each time, whereas the blue tree provides between four and 17 apples. Participants chose from the two trees in hopes of meeting some need-threshold that ranged from needing four apples to needing 31 apples. I separated participants into three conditions: a poor-state condition where participants needed many apples to meet their need; a moderate-state condition where participants needed a moderate number of apples to meet their need; and a good-state condition where participants needed a small number of apples to meet their need. I predicted that those in the poor-state and good-state conditions would choose the riskier (blue) tree more often than those in the moderate-state condition. I tested the results using a Kruskal-Wallis test (N = 293) and found support for the need-based (Obs. Diff. = 74.48, Crit. Diff. = 29.20), but not ability-based (Obs. Diff. = 5.41, Crit. Diff. = 29.06) pathway. Exploratory analyses elucidated many causal, decision-level variables, while also highlighting limitations with the study of risk-taking. I discuss implications for the relative state model, future research using the experimental task from the current study, and risk-taking research in the discussion.