No abstract

This research evaluated the effectiveness of statutes mandating a presumption against custody to a perpetrator of domestic violence (DV) and judicial education about DV. Across six states, the authors examined 393 custody and/or visitation orders where the father perpetrated DV against the mother and surveyed 60 judges who entered those orders. With the presumption, more orders gave legal and physical custody to the mother and imposed a structured schedule and restrictive conditions on fathers' visits, except where there was also a "friendly parent" provision and a presumption for joint custody. The presumption is effective only as part of a consistent statutory scheme. Although 86% of judges had received DV education, they scored no better in knowledge or attitudes. More of their orders gave mothers sole physical custody, and knowledge was associated with maternal custody, yet fewer structured or restricted fathers' visitation. Quality of DV education is more important than statutory mandate.

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Path analysis is a widely used multivariate technique to construct conceptual models of psychological, cognitive, and behavioral phenomena. Although causation cannot be inferred by using this technique, researchers utilize path analysis to portray possible causal linkages between observable constructs in order to better understand the processes and mechanisms behind a given phenomenon. The objectives of this tutorial are to provide an overview of path analysis, step-bystep instructions for conducting path analysis in Mplus, and guidelines and tools for researchers to construct and evaluate path models in their respective fields of study. These objectives will be met by using data to generate a conceptual model of the psychological, cognitive, and behavioral antecedents of bulimic symptoms in a sample of young adults.