Search results

Verbal abuse of the aged people in later life is a matter of grave concern in contemporary times. Aged people are abused by family members, relatives and neighbors in the form of yelling, taunting, swearing and threats, among other things. These abusive behaviors have the greatest influence on their social standing and well-being, and they cause society and families to dismantle their social networks as a result. This study aims to understand the nature of verbal elder abuse as a social phenomenon under the theoretical framework of sociocultural paradigm and examines the causes.

The descriptive phenomenology method has been applied in this study. The study has been conducted on a sample of 60 elderly living in Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. The concern of using descriptive phenomenology in the present study is to understand the nature of verbal abuse against the elderly systematically by exploring cultural, situational and social aspects of verbal abuse in Indian society. This method analyzes the reality behind the verbal elder abuse as a social phenomenon and relationship between elderly and their abusers.

The study finds an increase in verbal elder abuse in Indian families, which can range from psychological torture to physical torture, and includes insults, humiliation and neglecting the needs of the elderly for food, clothing, shelter and medical attention. The study also points out that reduction in attachment is as a responsible factor for verbal abuse with the elderly in modern times.

This is an original paper. This paper talks about the most concerning issue of verbal abuse which is faced by aged people in their family and society. Basically, this paper has applied the descriptive phenomenological method for the analysis of verbal elder abuse as a social phenomenon in the sociocultural context of Indian society.

The Syrian civil war that forced hundreds of thousands of Syrian women and children into Jordan as refugees dramatically increased the number of child labourers in that country. The current investigation aims to establish a body of knowledge on the issues surrounding child labour in Jordan by providing an exploratory diagnosis of the phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to explore verbal and physical abusive practices towards working children and investigate whether there are differences between the treatment of domestic and Syrian refugee child labourers.

The research design is quantitative; however, we use a qualitative technique to support and expand the research findings. Data were collected from 124 Jordanian and Syrian working children over a seven-month period in 2013.

The results reveal that it is poverty that forces Jordanian children into work while Syrian children are driven by the need for asylum. Of the abusive practices directed towards working children, verbal abuse is the most common. Older children, children from unstable families and those who work long hours are more vulnerable to this form of abuse, while children from unstable family structures and who work long hours are more likely to experience physically abuse. The results reveal that Syrian children are paid much less, are less verbally abused, had better schooling and perceive working conditions more positively than do their Jordanian counterparts.

Limitations of this research arise from the size the sample.

The current study aims to raise awareness about the importance of preventing abusive practices towards local and refugee children working in Jordan.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, very little is known about refugee child labour and how it might differ from domestic child labour.

The current study aimed to investigate potential sex differences in the use of verbal aggression in romantic relationships.

The current study used meta‐analytic methodology to analyze 20 studies to understand gender differences in the use of verbal aggression in romantic relationships.

The results found that women used more verbal aggression than men in romantic relationships; however, overall levels of verbal aggression use were relatively high regardless of sex.

Limitations of the current research, such as calling for less exploratory research and the need for theories grounded in human coupling research, and suggestions for future research are provided.

Advice for clinicians and practitioners regarding verbal aggression in romantic relationships is discussed with particular emphasis on the possibility of including measures against verbal aggression in interventions on positive couple communication.

The current study adds to the literature by addressing which sex uses more verbal aggression in romantic relationships and providing a critical review of the existing literature with recommendations and limitations of the field.

Violence toward frontline health-care workers (HCWs) from patients and visitors is a pervasive issue that ranges from verbal and psychological abuse to physical assault. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased reports of escalated verbal workplace aggressions (VWPAs); however, most studies have been conducted internationally. Studies based in the USA have focused on physical violence experienced by nurses and paramedics in emergency situations. The purpose of this study is to learn about the experiences of different levels of frontline HCWs with VWPA from patients and visitors and discover ways to address this issue.

This qualitative descriptive study asked registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and patient care technicians from one health-care system about their experiences with patient and visitor VWPA using an anonymous, voluntary open-ended survey and in-person interviews. In all, 31 participants completed the survey and 2 were interviewed. Data were analyzed using content analysis.

Three themes emerged from the data: the experience, moving through and moving forward. Frontline HCWs described experiences of VWPA, indicating its forms, frequency and conditions. They used coping, along with personal and professional measures, to manage and move through the situation. Moving forward was captured as suggestions for the future and conveyed hope for a perfect state.

The experiences of frontline HCWs offered insight into how they perceive and cope with difficult encounters. Recommendations relate to not only implementing interventions that support frontline HCWs but also creating a culture where aggression is not tolerated and addressing perpetrator behavior is a priority.

This paper aims to determine to what extent there is a difference in employees’ perception of abuse in the selective tourism destination in various types of specialized hotels.

A survey of employees in specialized hotels in the selective tourism destination has the sample of 1,796 cases. Multivariate analysis of variance is used for testing the level of perception’s differences.

There is a statistically significant difference in the perception of abuse among employees in various types of specialized hotels such as wellness hotels, sport hotels, business hotels and congress hotels.

The results offer employees’ perception of differences about abuse in various types of specialized hotels in the selective tourism destination. There is a possibility of practical usage of methodology for identification of the most often types of abuse in specialized hotels. The identification of abuse is to protect specific social structures such as employees in specialized hotels in the selective tourism destination.

Research could serve as a good example for future practical and theoretical research in the field of abuse and specialized hotels. The paper can be used as a methodological tool to show how to identify the most often types of abuse in specialized hotels in a concrete selective tourism destination.

This study aims to explore the scope of consumers’ defective co-creation behaviour in professional service encounters. One of the founding premises of service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004, 2008) is that consumers co-create the value they derive from service encounters. In practice, however, dysfunctional consumer behaviour can obstruct value co-creation. Extant research has not yet investigated consumers’ defective co-creation behaviour in highly relational services, such as professional services, that are heavily reliant on co-creation.

To investigate defective co-creation in professional services, 164 critical incidents were collected from 38 health-care and financial service providers using the critical incident technique within semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Thematic coding was used to identify emergent themes and patterns of consumer behaviour.

Thematic coding resulted in a comprehensive typology of consumers’ defective co-creation behaviour that both confirms the prevalence of previously identified dysfunctional behaviours (e.g. verbal abuse and physical aggression) and identifies two new forms of consumer misbehaviour: underparticipation and overparticipation. Further, these behaviours can vary, escalate and co-occur during service encounters.

Both underparticipation and overparticipation are newly identified forms of defective co-creation that need to be examined within the broader framework of service-dominant logic (SDL).

This study aims to explore the risk and protective factors of abuse on older adults by family caregivers, with a special focus on the protective role of caregiver resilience in elder abuse.

This cross-sectional survey was conducted on a purposive sample of 600 family caregivers of community-dwelling older adults in Hong Kong (mean age = 71.04 and female = 67.2%). Caregivers reported in a guided interview about elder abuse behaviours, caregiver burden, care recipients’ agitated behaviours, caregiver resilience, self-efficacy, social support and basic demographic characteristics. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the predictors of different forms of elder abuse.

Caregiver resilience was predictive of lower levels of verbal abuse, physical abuse, injury and financial exploitation but not potentially harmful behaviour (PHB). Social support was independent with all forms of elder abuse, while self-efficacy predicted greater physical abuse after the adjustment of confounding variables. Caregiver burden and agitated behaviours by care recipients remained as significant risk factors in the final models when protective factors were considered.

This study extends current knowledge on the protecting role of resilience in elder abuse in family caregiving. Mixed findings revealed on social support and self-efficacy also highlight the complexity of the prediction of caregiver abuse. Further research should address this area.

The findings of this study warrant the inclusion of caregiver resilience as a key component in developing interventions to prevent elder abuse. Addressing caregiver burden and agitated behaviours have the potential in preventing elder abuse.

The findings raise awareness of the importance of supporting caregivers in the community to prevent elder abuse.

Research concerning the protective factors of elder abuse is in a preliminary stage. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first which successfully demonstrates the protective role of resilience in caregiver abuse on older adults. The findings shed invaluable light on the design of effective interventions.

This study aims to examine customer misbehaviour in the hospitality sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study draws on a cross-sectional survey of employees in the Scottish hospitality sector highlighting customer misbehaviour as a key concern during the pandemic. Prevalent types of abuse and harassment experienced are outlined along with employee and management responses to incidents of misbehaviour.

Verbal abuse and sexual harassment from customers are the most prevalent types of misbehaviour either experienced or witnessed by respondents. Customer misbehaviour is commonly thought of as “part of the job” and therefore “not a big deal”. Managers, largely, expect workers to tolerate abusive behaviours from customers and do not take reports of incidents seriously.

Transformational managers need to foster workplace well-being with a focus on physical and psychological safety. Recognition of the issue and greater support for victims are furthermore required at an industry level and on the policy front.

The research points to an uncomfortable reality in the service economy that needs to be confronted by society. It has, therefore, important implications for key stakeholders in ensuring fair, dignified and safe hospitality workplaces.

Customer misbehaviour is reportedly worsening in times of COVID-19 as demonstrated by this study. Despite rhetoric that abuse and harassment are not tolerated, dismissive attitudes from managers – who expect workers to tolerate abusive behaviour – and employee silence about incidents lead the authors to argue that the failure to acknowledge and address this issue constitutes a form of “social washing” in hospitality.

The appalling abuse healthcare workers have endured from patients is long documented in the popular press and social media. Less explored in the healthcare management literature is workplace abuse that professional nurses experience from their coworkers.

The authors use text-based first-hand accounts from nurses posting on Reddit (N = 75) to better understand the types and context of abusive acts endured by their coworkers in the contemporary healthcare setting. Each account is content analyzed using two raters, and thematic analysis is utilized to summarize findings.

Findings indicate that nurse workplace abuse frequently targets new entrants to a work unit (e.g. recent grads), typically is ongoing, takes verbal and nonverbal forms, mainly stems from coworkers (i.e. lateral mistreatment), and frequently takes place in front of other coworkers, mainly in hospital settings.

By applying the lens of mindfulness, healthcare organizations can transform these harmful interactions within the nursing profession. The authors offer administrators and frontline workers practical implications for mitigating workplace abuse, including reshaping the culture, bystander interventions and explicit leadership support.

First-hand accounts from nurses in the frontlines of healthcare provide a rich voice that reveals the reality of ongoing verbal and nonverbal peer abuse in hospitals and healthcare settings.

The signal detection theory has evolutionary foundations such that our ancestors who were able to detect signals of aggression survived, while those who could not were extinguished. The paper examines the detection of conflict escalation signals in a domestic argument in a married couple as a consequence of history with prior victimization and perpetration of violence. The purpose of this paper is threefold: escalation detection differences between a trained special victim’s detective and untrained individuals; escalation detection for individuals with domestic violence victimization; and physiological arousal during escalation detection.

Subjects with various histories of victimization and perpetration using the Straus conflict tactics scale watched a video of an argument that escalated in conflict while their heart rate and electrodermal activity (EDA) was measured. Participants were asked to pause the tape and write any verbal and non-verbal signal of escalating conflict. The signal coding used deductive, a prioi coding based on Gottman’s (1994, 2011) corrosive behaviors indicative of conflict. A repeated measures general linear model in sex and conflict initiation using two measures of physiological arousal revealed significant effects on EDA while watching escalating conflict as a function of victimization history.

A series of hypotheses and research questions tested untrained people’s signal detection abilities with a trained, special victim’s unit police investigator as a consequence of male and female-initiated conflict. Untrained viewers reported fewer aggression signals than the police investigator. A repeated measures general linear model using two measures of physiological arousal revealed significant effects on EDA while watching escalating conflict as a function of victimization history. Results are discussed in terms of the signal detection and excitation-transfer theories toward explaining responses to escalating conflict.

A limitation of this study was asking participants to document all abuse while not differentiating between different forms (i.e. emotional, verbal, physical). A future study could investigate how well participants can detect different forms of abuse. This area of research could be beneficial especially in the form of past history. For example, if an individual has been a recipient of emotional abuse, do they detect significantly more signals of emotional abuse than they would for physical abuse?

The findings of our study have could practical publications for advising people who cope with conflict as they vary in their use of negotiation and physical force. The fact that physiological arousal was heightened after exposure to the conflict escalation video as a function of victimization due to physical force has ramifications for watching media with violent content. Therapists could ask survivors if they feel based on their experience, that they could help others to recognize aggressive signals or if they are immune to these signals, given the debate over victim desensitization vs heightened sensitivity.

The authors feel it is imperative to note that our current study was designed to gain a deeper understanding of domestic violence in order to ultimately benefit victims in the recovery process and to (ideally) prevent recurrence of domestic violence in the future. This research is not intended to implicate victims in anyway as being responsible for the consequences of domestic violence due to an inability to detect signals of aggression. Indeed, future research should examine how to skillfully advise domestic violence victims while protecting their already vulnerable self-images.

Every day, people are exposed to violence through social media, news, movies and television. Hence, we may become either sensitized to violence or desensitized. These are competing hypotheses that we tested in conjunction with physiological arousal. It is important to analyze reactions to viewing violence due to the sheer amount that is readily disseminated.