Child molesters go where the children are

As reported by David Rose in the London Mail on Sunday, June 23, 2018 (link in original):

A devastating report will this week expose the scale and impact of child sexual abuse across the UK.

Researchers have found that abuse is widespread across all communities and social classes – and believe it has been perpetrated in schools and other institutions much more widely than previously thought.

The report – obtained by The Mail on Sunday – is based on the biggest archive of evidence by abuse victims and survivors ever assembled in this country.

It presents detailed accounts from 50 of the 1,400 people who have so far given evidence to the Truth Project, part of the huge Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) set up by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary.

Researchers have found that abuse is widespread across all communities and social classes – and believe it has been perpetrated in schools and other institutions much more widely than previously thought...

...Nabila's parents used to send her to their local mosque in Birmingham for religious instruction from the age of seven.

The Bangladeshi imam, Hafiz Rehman, subjected her to escalating sexual abuse for four years, finally attempting to rape her.

‘I used to think about telling my mum every day as I walked home,’ she says.

‘But I was scared. Would she believe me? How could I say such things about an imam?’

Sometimes she avoided classes by hiding in a graveyard. But she kept silent and even today, as a married mother, ‘intimacy seems dirty. If I do start to enjoy sex, I feel I must have enjoyed it when he was doing those things to me’.

She went to the police years later, and after a second mosque victim came forward, he was convicted in 2016 and sentenced to 11 and a half years in jail.

Astonishingly, Rehman had been on bail and was allowed to stay at home at the end of the trial by claiming he was ill.

He had surrendered his UK passport, but had a second, Bangladeshi one – and the day after he was sentenced he fled there, where he remains. Nabila says abuse is rife in Muslim communities, but ‘never discussed, always covered up.

The culture is, “we will deal with this, we don’t need anyone’s help” – but we don’t tackle it. There is abuse in almost every Asian family.

‘They get away with it in their own community, and then they target vulnerable white girls.

‘This culture has got to change.'...

...Patrick Sandford has had a successful career as a theatre director, actor and playwright.

But for decades he hid a deeply painful secret: he was repeatedly abused by a teacher in his last year at primary school.

Like many victims, this left him terrified of intimacy: he did not have a relationship until he was 26: ‘I didn’t let anyone touch me for 15 years.

‘I thought I was the most hideous, ghastly person, and I blamed the fact I was homosexual on my abuse.’

When he finally started to talk about it decades later, ‘I realised I’d had two lives – a successful professional one and a private psychological battle’.

In 2016, to rave reviews, he wrote and began performing his story in a one-man drama entitled Groomed.

Analysis by IICSA shows 53 per cent of witnesses who spoke to the project have so far been women, while 94 per cent of perpetrators were men.

Forty per cent of victims were aged between three and seven when their abuse started and 32 per cent between eight and 11. More than a third endured multiple ‘episodes’ of abuse.

They described a wide range of consequences in later life, including depression (33 per cent), difficulties with trust and intimacy (28 per cent), thoughts of suicide (28 per cent) and actual suicide attempts (22 per cent).

It is often claimed that most sexual abuse takes place within families. But only 28 per cent of witnesses say they were abused by relatives.

Abbie was abused by a Catholic priest for four years from when she was just seven.

A friend of her family, he assaulted her on days when he took her out and when staying at her family’s home.

Now in her 50s, she told the Truth Project her ordeal ‘destroyed me as a sexual person’.

She has had a successful career and many friends but has ‘never had a serious relationship’, because she says she found sexual thoughts ‘very upsetting’.

Although her abuser was in the Church, Abbie has retained her faith and says it is important to her.

But her attempts to raise what happened with the Church in her 20s were ‘met with disinterest’, she says.

Shockingly, around a quarter were abused by teachers or other educational staff, and a fifth by adult family friends or ‘trusted members of the community’.

Fourteen per cent were abused by members of the clergy, 12 per cent by professionals such as doctors and social workers, and nine per cent by residential care workers.

Rebekah Eglinton, one of IICSA’s clinical psychologists, works closely with the Truth Project. She said: ‘We’re learning that many people have put themselves in positions of trust and authority to have access to children.

'It feels really important that we are here. People tell us again and again how silenced they have felt. This is an opportunity to end that silence and so to hear how we can better protect children.’

Dru Sharpling, the former Crown Prosecutor for London, is the IICSA panel member who heads up the Truth Project. She said some victims’ testimony has been referred to the police, leading to 14 perpetrators being convicted of child sexual abuse so far.

She added: ‘Listening to these accounts can be extremely moving. For some, it’s the first time they’ve disclosed. Others have tried and not been believed.

‘Yet often there were signs when they were still children that something was very wrong – which were not picked up. Sharing these experiences is of inherent value but they will also help IICSA make recommendations to protect children in future.’

The Truth Project continues and those wanting to share their experiences can call 0800 917 1000 or visit truthproject.org.uk.

Fin – not his real name – told the Truth Project he was abused by the head teacher at his training school after he joined the Navy as a boy sailor in the 1950s.

He said that he informed the padre, who did nothing.

Fin began wetting his bed, and went AWOL, for which he was then beaten in ‘ceremonial’ fashion.

The Navy decided Fin was ‘unfit’ to serve and discharged him. He has, he says, had ‘a good life, financially’, but has struggled with his personal relationships, avoiding attachment for fear of ultimate rejection.

‘I wonder what my life could have been like if I had not been sexually abused,’ he said.

HT: Vox Popoli

Behavioural scientists don't seem to know much about human nature

I've never had a high opinion of behavioural scientists; they treat their discoveries of the most obvious human behaviours and characteristics as profound revelations. However, maybe I should treat behavioural scientists with more respect; they have fun conferences, and they come up with surprising discoveries such as those mentioned below.

Submitted for your approval is an excerpt from a report by Mike Pottenger, Sessional Lecturer, Department of Economics at University of Melbourne. Click on the link to see the full article, Why Can’t We Just Behave? Free Drinks and Behavioral Science, from The Conversation, June 4, 2014 (bold in original):

Something for Nothing and Making the Most of It

Last night there was a function where free drinks were served. Behavioural science has found that when something is free, people are likely to flock to it more than they otherwise might. So there’s reason to suspect that at least some attendees may have overindulged.

But that assumes the drinks really were free: attendees’ behaviour may have been driven by the assumption that they were effectively paying for the drinks (at least in part) through their registration fees.

In this case, behavioural science suggests that instead of regarding that past expense as a sunk cost and choosing their preferred number of drinks based on how many they actually feel like having, people may actually consume more drinks in an effort to get their money’s worth.

What About Self-Restraint? Or Self-Awareness?

Wouldn’t people’s knowledge that they needed to turn up bright and early this morning have meant they restrained themselves last night? As it turns out, behavioural science finds that a present bias means people are likely to have placed a higher value on having a good time last night than on being alert and attentive this morning.

Research also tells us that our capacity for self-restraint might be limited. So after spending a whole day paying attention to cognitively taxing talks and doing our best to avoid the chocolate cake at morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea, we might be less able to resist a tempting beverage (an effect known as ego-depletion).

You might think a group of people at a conference about behavioural science would know at least something about these behavioural phenomena and so could adjust their behaviour accordingly. But the research suggests it’s not easy to change your own behaviour even when you’re aware of your own biases (as is the case with gender bias). Many of the experts noted that yes, even they were subject to this dilemma. To make matters worse, self-serving bias means people are likely to routinely overestimate their ability to do so.

HT: The Epoch Times

Narcissists are attracted to positions of power--or is it the other way around?

I'm always struck by the number of politicians and people who run for political office--people who presume to be qualified to govern others--who can't govern themselves and have the nerve to run for office despite having huge skeletons in their closets (or sometimes in plain view). The recent examples of Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, and Anthony Weiner come to mind. Then, of course, there are those who run for and hold office to meet the demands of their own egos (examples too numerous to mention). News with Views commentator Dave Daubenmire puts it succinctly: "America is governed by sociopaths." The situation is no better in Canada (which is one of the reasons I've largely given up voting), but of course, we can't figure this out ourselves--we need a psychology professor to tell us. As reported by Andrea Hill of Postmedia News, August 16, 2013:

OTTAWA — As Sen. Pamela Wallin‘s damning expense audit becomes public knowledge, many Canadians have taken to social media and the op-ed pages of their local papers to express disgust at what they call the senator’s “sense of entitlement.”

Wallin — who is accused of improperly claiming more than $120,000 in travel expenses — has staunchly denied she feels any such thing.

“I do not have some sense of entitlement,” she told the CBC in June. “I didn’t deliberately set out to abuse this system in any way.”

She insists Senate rules about what can be claimed are unclear and that the audit process was “fundamentally flawed and unfair.”

But behaviour experts say it’s not unusual for people in positions of power to feel entitled.

“People in the Senate, in the Canadian Senate, are there because they’re being rewarded for a lifetime of service to Canada,” said Del Paulhus, a psychology professor at University of British Columbia who studies narcissism. “It seems that’s why they’re there: because they deserve to be there and they deserve to get all the perks.”

Paulhus said Wallin “absolutely” displayed a sense of entitlement by charging taxpayers for travel not directly related to Senate duties and that her behaviour is not surprising. After all, he said, Canada’s upper house — which is filled with successful people who are often told how important they are — breeds a culture of entitlement.

But Paulhus said some people are more likely than others to believe they deserve to use public funds for their own purposes.

Feelings of entitlement often come hand-in-hand with big egos, Paulhus said, and people who make their careers as television broadcasters — as Wallin did — could be more likely to fit that description.

And just as broadcast work draws people with a distorted sense of what they are owed, so too does the Senate, said Christian Jordan, a psychology professor and narcissism expert at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont.

While he said there’s no reason to think the Senate as a whole has an inflated sense of entitlement, “there’s certainly evidence that narcissists are more likely to seek high-profile positions, be they celebrity positions or in politics, more than other people do.”

“And being in those positions leads people to feel a greater sense of entitlement and power as well,” he said.

Jordan said people with this attitude believe they deserve more than others and don’t feel bad about claiming what they believe to be rightfully theirs.

“It’s a route to get really what they are entitled to or what they deserve to have, and so they don’t really think about the repercussions of what that means for other people or for the public generally,” he said...

...But saying these politicians felt a sense of entitlement when they helped themselves to the public coffers doesn’t tell the whole story, said Frank Farley, a psychology professor at Temple University in Philadelphia and past-president of the American Psychological Association.

“It may be an ingredient in the recipe, but the driving force in the recipe is this deeply rooted risk tolerance quality that is demanded in the political life,” Farley said.

He said people who end up in politics are hardwired to take risks. After all, “if you’re a shrinking violet, to use that old phrase, you’re not going to make it to the top.”

Farley said a politician’s job involves speaking in public, engaging in public debate and suffering “the slings and arrows of criticism.” You need to be a risk taker to survive the day-to-day responsibilities of the job, Farley said, but there’s a “destructive side” to that behaviour, which can lead to actions like inappropriately claiming expenses...

As Thomas Sowell says, politicians who talk about being in "public service" are likely to end up thinking that the voters owe them something.

Fat kids don't feel good about themselves...

...while kids who do well on exams do feel good about themselves.

According to this study from the University of Alberta:

Kids who scored well on provincial exams tended to have high self-esteem, the researchers said, although children with low self-worth still managed to perform well. Children dealing with obesity, meanwhile, weren't feeling good about themselves.
"Body weight affected self-esteem negatively, and ... school performance affected self-esteem positively," the study says.

For another article on the same study, go here.

Unpopular girls tend to be fatter...

...or is it that fat girls tend to be unpopular?

Teen girls' popularity predicts weight change, study shows
Posted by Elizabeth Cooney January 7, 2008 05:04 PM

Adolescent girls who placed themselves low on the ladder of popularity were more likely to gain weight later in their teen years than girls who saw themselves as having higher social standing, Boston-area researchers say...