Brazil was, and remains, the first country to legally recognise and penalise acts classified as 'parental alienation'. The enactment and application of this Act have been widely criticised in Brazil due to its adverse effects on the decision-making process and its potential risks to children's best interests and women's rights. This article explores how 'parental alienation' became a legal concept in Brazil and examines its impact on the family justice system, as well as on the rights of children and women. Additionally, we present findings from a decision-making experiment conducted with 45 legal professionals - including judges, prosecutors, lawyers, psychologists, and social workers - in Brazil and England. The results reveal that legal actors influenced by 'parental alienation' assumptions tended to overlook the inherent uncertainty and complexity of cases, ultimately impairing the decision-making process and compromising the best interests of children.

Research on embodied cognition has shown that sentences with action verbs engage motor processes more strongly than sentences with attentional verbs, leading to enhanced memory for single assertions. This study investigates the salience of action verbs compared to attentional verbs in narrative comprehension by mental models and whether this is influenced by different communicative goals. Participants read a short crime scenario, imagined themselves as perpetrators, and were assigned to one of three communicative-goal groups: Truth-teller, Liar, or Counterfactual-Thinker. We examined which events were salient during prompted recall and how events were modified under deceptive and counterfactual goals. Results showed that events described with action verbs were more salient than those described with attentional verbs, regardless of communicative goals. Moreover, when required to revise the salient event under deceptive or counterfactual goals, participants preferentially used action verbs to modify events rather than attentional verbs. These findings suggest that action verbs play a privileged role in both the salience of events and their subsequent revision within narrative mental models regardless of communicative goals, consistent with embodied accounts of language comprehension.

The gendered nature of UK gyms presents barriers to women’s use of these spaces, where they often feel intimidated and self-conscious. Personal trainers (PTs) could be instrumental in creating less objectifying exercise environments for women. Exploring the actual interactions in personal training sessions and the dyadic experiences of these interactions could further understanding on how fitness professionals can improve women’s experiences of exercise. The present study aimed to explore PTs’ and their women clients’ perspectives on their body-related interactions in their sessions. Six PT-client dyads from the UK took part in an observation-interview study. We used a novel method involving triangulating data from the personal training session itself, an interview with the PT and an interview with the client. Interactions from each dyad’s recorded session were selected according to Objectification Theory and previous research in the personal training context. PTs and clients were then interviewed about their experiences of the selected interactions. Data from sessions and interviews were analysed using a critical realist reflexive thematic analysis. Four themes were generated and presented as composite vignettes: 1) A Body Alliance: How Relational History Creates a Safe Space, 2) Fluidity of Expertise Over the Client’s Body, 3) When Body Talk is Lost in Translation, and 4) Strength in Reassurance. Findings suggest ways in which PTs can communicate in order to promote positive body image amongst their clients. This understanding provides insight into how to fitness professionals may reduce barriers to exercise for women, such that more women engage in exercise long-term.

Research in sport and exercise settings suggests that physical activity leaders have the potential to influence body image for their athletes and exercisers. However, research is yet to explore this possibility in the context of one-to-one exercise relationships. The present study sought to explore women's body image in the context of personal training, specifically how women perceive the language and behaviours of their personal trainers as influencing their thoughts and feelings about their bodies. Seventeen women (aged 45-64) sent diary entries via WhatsApp after each personal training session over a period of four weeks. Each participant then took part in a semi-structured interview to elaborate on their diary entries and their overall experiences of their body in the context of their personal training sessions. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis from a critical-realist perspective. Four themes were generated: (1) "We're all different, aren't we?": Permission to be me, (2) "Dial it back accordingly": Confidence through responsiveness, (3) A mutual focus on function, and (4) Supporting connection with the body through movement. Findings provide insight into how interpersonal relationships within exercise settings contribute to women's body image and suggest ways in which personal trainers could promote positive body image through their interactions with their clients.

Of all the issues that confront modern organisations, insider threat is one of the most challenging in terms of impact and mitigation. Typically, research has focused on defining what insider threat is and determining how such threats can be detected through technology. We suggest that technological approaches to insider-threat detection can be complemented through a greater focus on investigating the linguistic behaviours associated with insider activity. Research has highlighted that an individual's use of language offers a potential means of identifying insiders. Using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, this study analysed the language used by insiders and non-insiders during workplace interviews. Results revealed that, compared to non-insiders, insiders used significantly more words relating to cognitive processing, significantly more self-referential terms, and significantly more negative emotion words. Based on these findings, a generalisable Insider Language Index (ILI) was developed that has the potential to support insider detection in organisational contexts.

This study aimed to investigate the awareness of undergraduate students regarding the best interests principle of children and adolescents, and how they consider it in cases of custody disputes following conjugal separation. The research employed a quantitative approach with an experimental design based on vignettes. A total of 530 undergraduate students from Law, Psychology, and Social Work programs in Brazil and England were recruited. The results revealed that most students have little knowledge or have never heard of the best interests of the child/adolescent during their academic training. The students tended to maintain the current custody arrangement when dealing with the contextual needs of the child (e.g., mental health, emotional bonds). They changed their decision-making style when dealing with material-physiological needs (e.g., food, housing). This article discusses the implications of these decision-making patterns, as well as the lack of literacy on the best interests of the child/adolescent in the training of these undergraduate students.

Despite widespread recognition of the need for general-purpose mechanisms in unified theories of cognition, accounts of human thinking often propose that performance is best explained by task- or problem-specific knowledge and heuristics, elements found even in theories proposing general-purpose mechanisms. Here, we argue that many of the effects explained by task- or problem-specific knowledge or heuristics can be better explained by two general mechanisms: maximisation of progress and learning from experience. In Experiment 1, performance on the Taxicab problem, variously described as requiring or not requiring insight, was unaffected by removal of content presumed to trigger a problem-specific heuristic. In Experiment 2, the order of move selection in the Hobbits and Orcs problem, usually described as a transformation problem that does not require insight to solve, was successfully modelled by a maximisation heuristic with conceptual encoding of intermediate states, irrespective of problem context. In Experiment 3, solution rates to the eight-coin puzzle, a problem generally accepted as requiring insight to solve, were increased by cueing moves. A parsimonious theory, based on progress maximisation plus conceptual learning during solution, appears sufficient to model performance across a wide range of problems.

Sources of difficulty in insight problem-solving have been identified, but current theories are less successful at explaining discovery of solution ideas. Here, we explore the role of expertise in promoting insight. In Experiment 1, experienced designers and financiers solved visual and verbal problems. Expertise did not influence solution rates for verbal problems, but designers solved more visual problems than financiers, despite similar incorrect initial attempts. In Experiment 2, experienced and novice designers attempted problems either unconstrained, prevented from drawing, or sitting on their hands to prevent drawing and gesture. Hand and drawing constraints removed the positive benefits of expertise. Experienced designers appear to solve visual problems by using strategies to explore the visuo-spatial environment in search of new representations. The results indicate that expert strategic knowledge can be a source of insight. They also show that strategic transfer of expertise to far domains can be achieved.

Research is yet to consider the potential for personal trainers (PTs) to influence their client’s thoughts and feelings surrounding their body. This pre-registered study explored a model of positive body image in women personal training clients in the UK. Participants (n = 234, mean age = 51) completed an online questionnaire assessing body mass index (BMI), perceived body acceptance by their PT and various other measures related to body image. Perceived body acceptance by the PT was indirectly, positively associated with client body appreciation through greater internal body orientation and negatively associated with client BMI. Findings suggest PTs may be an important source of body acceptance for their clients. Education of PTs should be considered for promoting positive body image in women fitness industry consumers.

Objective Develop and investigate the potential of a remote, computer-mediated and synchronous text-based triage, which we refer to as InSort, for quickly highlighting persons of interest after an insider attack. Background Insiders maliciously exploit legitimate access to impair the confidentiality and integrity of organizations. The globalisation of organisations and advancement of information technology means employees are often dispersed across national and international sites, working around the clock, often remotely. Hence, investigating insider attacks is challenging. However, the cognitive demands associated with masking insider activity offer opportunities. Drawing on cognitive approaches to deception and understanding of deception-conveying features in textual responses, we developed InSort, a remote computer-mediated triage. Method During a 6-hour immersive simulation, participants worked in teams, examining password protected, security sensitive databases and exchanging information during an organized crime investigation. Twenty-five percent were covertly incentivized to act as an 'insider' by providing information to a provocateur. Results Responses to InSort questioning revealed insiders took longer to answer investigation relevant questions, provided impoverished responses, and their answers were less consistent with known evidence about their behaviours than co-workers. Conclusion Findings demonstrate InSort has potential to expedite information gathering and investigative processes following an insider attack. Application InSort is appropriate for application by non-specialist investigators and can be quickly altered as a function of both environment and event. InSort offers a clearly defined, well specified, approach for use across insider incidents, and highlights the potential of technology for supporting complex time critical investigations.

Child custody cases post-parental separation entail inherent complexities and uncertainties for legal experts and decision-makers, and are influenced by context factors. This study sheds light on how legal actors (i.e., judges, prosecutors, lawyers, psychologists, and social workers) navigate the uncertainties that arise in such context and, therefore, make their decisions. Based on a reflexive thematic analysis involving 73 participants from Brazil and England, this study reveals cognitive strategies employed by legal actors to comprehend uncertainty and operate in the decision-making context. These strategies encompass heuristics (i.e., selection, evaluation, degrees of freedom, and outsourcing decisions/ resolution) and metacognitive strategies (custodial arrangements, professional practices and ‘best interests of the child’ speech). These results provide a window into the decision-making processes in child custody cases; they offer a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted sensemaking strategies employed by legal professionals. The results carry substantial implications for informing and improving legal practice in handling complex child custody situations. Furthermore, this study charts new paths for future research by highlighting potential avenues for refining and advancing the strategies employed by legal experts in these cases, especially considering the child’s best interests.

Context factors (e.g. a family’s developmental crisis) can affect the child custody decision-making process and the child’s best interests after parental separation. But what are these context factors, and how can they vary across different cultures and legal systems? This paper reports a cross-cultural qualitative study funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Education and was carried out under a Naturalistic Decision-making approach. This study addresses context factors that impact the decision-making of experienced legal actors working in child custody cases. Interviews were conducted with 73 legal actors (judges, prosecutors, lawyers, psychologists, and social workers) in Brazil and England. The data gathered were analysed employing a reflexive thematic analysis that generated seven themes addressing how uncertainty is structured by context factors in child custody cases after parental separation. The themes generated encompassed three domains (‘family’, ‘family court’, and ‘legal-psychosocial’) that draw attention to the sources of uncertainty in child custody cases, especially to the role of contextual players (family and children) in the child custody decision-making process.

Background County lines is used to describe the illicit drug supply model whereby drugs are transported from one area of the country to another, often by children believed to have been physically and psychologically coerced to do so. County lines is a serious threat to public health, with significant negative impacts on the physical and psychological health and wellbeing of children and families. Methods We conducted in-depth interviews with parents of children involved in county lines to understand their experiences and the impact of grooming and recruitment. Interviews were conducted between December 2019 and January 2021. Thematic analysis identified four primary themes: (i) out of nowhere behaviour change, (ii) escalation and entrenchment, (iii) impact of intervention failures and (iv) destructive lifestyle choices. Results Parents from across England all reported similar experiences, and so these data offer novel insight into potential grooming and recruitment indicators. All were frustrated by the prevailing vulnerable narrative, which they argued hindered understanding. A lack of consultation, and reports of numerous intervention failures was common. Conclusion The importance of giving parents a voice and involving them as a potential first line of defence, and how the current vulnerability narrative appears to be closing impactful education opportunities are discussed.

In creative domains such as art, design and science, the generation of novel possibilities is highly desirable. However, most human activity takes place outside of domains where the generation of novel possibilities is prescriptively optimal, and indeed to do so may be undesirable. In this paper, evidence for the paucity of possibility generation will be described, even in instances where generation of multiple possibilities might be desirable. Conversely, the value of focussing on currently explored rather than novel possibilities is demonstrated with reference to a computational model of insight problem-solving. It is suggested that, in domains where generation of creative possibilities is a task requirement, strategies acquired though domain expertise are needed to push thinking into new possibility spaces. These strategies are illustrated by case studies and data from domains of insurance fraud and police investigations, educational task design and puzzle solving.

Objectives: Despite NICE guidelines to 'treat people with invasive breast cancer, irrespective of age, with surgery and appropriate systemic therapy, rather than endocrine therapy alone', older patients receive differential treatment and experience worse outcomes. Research has evidenced the prevalence of ageism and identified the role of implicit bias in reflecting and potentially perpetuating disparities across society, including in healthcare. Yet age bias has rarely been considered as an explanatory factor in poorer outcomes for older breast cancer patients nor, consequentially, has removing age bias been considered as an approach to improving outcomes. Many organizations carry out bias training with the aim of reducing negative impacts from biased decision making, yet the few evaluations of these interventions have mostly seen small or negative effects. This study explores whether a novel intervention to address age bias leads to better quality decision making for the treatment of older women with breast cancer.Methods: An online study compared medical students' treatment recommendations for older breast cancer patients and the reasoning for their decision making before and after a novel bias training intervention. Thirty-one medical students participated in the study.Results: The results show that the bias training intervention led medical students to make better quality decisions for older breast cancer patients. The quality of decision making was measured by decreases in age-based decision making and increased efforts to include patients in decision making. These results suggest there is value in exploring whether if anti-bias training interventions could usefully be applied in other areas of practice where older patients experience poorer outcomes.Conclusions: This study evidences that bias training improves the quality of decision making by medical students in respect of older breast cancer patients. The study findings show promise that this novel approach to bias training might usefully be applied to all medical practitioners making treatment recommendations for older patients.

ObjectivesDespite NICE (2009; 2018) guidelines to treat breast cancer patients ‘irrespective of age’, older women experience differential treatment and worse outcomes beyond that which can be explained by patient health or patient choice. Research has evidenced the prevalence of ageism and identified the role of implicit bias in reflecting and perhaps perpetuating disparities across society, including in healthcare. Yet age bias has rarely been considered as an explanatory factor in poorer outcomes for older breast cancer patients.MethodsThis mixed methods study explored age bias amongst breast cancer HCPs through four components: 1) An implicit associations test (31 HCPs)2) A treatment recommendations questionnaire (46 HCPs).3) An attitudes about older patients questionnaire (31 HCPs).4) A treatment recommendations interview (20 HCPs).ResultsThis study showed that breast cancer HCPs held negative implicit associations towards older women; HCPs were less likely to recommend surgery for older patients; some HCPs held assumptions that older patients are more afraid, less willing and able to be involved in decision-making, and are less willing and able to cope with being informed of a poor treatment prognosis; and conditions which disproportionately affect older patients, such as dementia, are not always well understood by breast cancer HCPs.ConclusionsThese results indicate that there are elements of age bias present amongst breast cancer HCPs. The study's findings of age-based assumptions and a poorer understanding of conditions which disproportionately affect older patients align with patterns of differential treatment towards older breast cancer patients suggesting that age bias may be, at least in part, driving differential treatment.

A preservação dos melhores interesses da criança/adolescente (MICA) nos casos de disputa de guarda e convivência após a separação conjugal é uma tarefa difícil para os atores jurídicos envolvidos nesses casos. Existem alguns fatores que desempenham um papel significativo nesse contexto, ao modificar e/ou moldar o processo legal e o processo de tomada de decisão. Assim, a depender da dinâmica apresentada por esses fatores, o processo de tomada de decisão pode ser mais ou menos difícil. Este artigo apresenta uma revisão narrativa de literatura que teve como objetivo trazer uma visão comparativa entre os processos legais no Brasil e na Inglaterra, bem como questões contextuais envolvidas na disputa de guarda após a separação conjugal. Nesse sentido, são discutidos entendimentos e orientações legais quanto aos MICA, assim como regulações legais relativas à relação parento-filial e divórcio nos dois países. Revela-se que questões legais e culturais podem moldar esses entendimentos e orientações, o que pode levar a diferenças significativas no processo judicial referente à guarda de crianças em ambos os países. Assim, destacam-se e se discutem diferenças culturais e jurídicas relevantes entre o common law inglês e o civil law brasileiro (e.g., concepções sobre ‘guarda’; poder familiar; arranjos de guarda; e o processo judicial em processos de guarda e convivência), as quais podem impactar o processo de tomada de decisão e os melhores interesses da criança.

Aviation security measures rely on public acceptance of the trade-off between civil liberties and public protection. Currently, all aviation passengers travelling to the US on an American carrier from non-U.S. locations undergo screening interview based on detection of suspicious signs, an approach which is not supported by psychological research. An alternative, Controlled Cognitive Engagement (CCE) was shown in a series of field trials to be more effective than suspicious signs methods in detecting deception during security interviews. However, CCE asks passengers to satisfy agents that answers to questions are veridical, which raises a concern that CCE might be viewed as too intrusive. Here, 120 genuine air passengers provided anonymous feedback regarding their experience of screening. CCE-screened passengers reported their experience as significantly more enjoyable, no less intrusive nor less acceptable than the current procedure, and were ‘promoters’ of the technique whereas those in the suspicious signs condition were ‘detractors’. Winning and maintaining the respect and approval of the travelling public is an important consideration in the task of securing freedom of movement and public safety.