Research investigating attitudes toward sex offenders has failed to specify the gender of the ''sex offenders''. Given that most participants are unlikely to think of women as sex offenders, it is likely that reported attitudes relate to male sex offenders. This study investigated the attitudes towards female sex offenders of 92 members of staff employed by a UK chain store (public sample), 20 probation officers employed by a Regional Sex Offender Unit (forensic professional sample) and 64 undergraduate psychology students (student sample).Participants completed the Attitudes Toward Female Sex Offenders Scale adapted from the Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders Scale. Forensic professionals held significantly more positive attitudes than both the students and public. Comparisons between the responses in this study with those of previous studies revealed that the forensic professionals in this study held significantly more positive attitudes towards female sex offenders than professionals in previous studies did towards ''sex offenders''.

The use of famous and/or attractive models in brand marketing is ubiquitous yet little work, if any, has been carried out examining differences in their efficiency in driving subsequent consumer behaviour. Such brand platforms have an emotional selling proposition (ESP) that refers to the unique personality and image attributes that a particular endorsement generates. However, celebrity endorsers are also more than likely to be considered attractive and thus differences in the ESP (if any) would be very small. Such differences in an emotional response could be measured by a participant's electrodermal activity (EDA). This is a psychophysiological response, measurement of which is sensitive enough to detect differences engendered by a particular brand platform's ESP. In the present study, EDA measurements were recorded from participants who were shown advertisements containing a target product within four different types of endorsement platforms depicting models who were either famous/non-famous or attractive/average looking. The results showed that average looking celebrity endorsers produced a greater EDA response than any of the other conditions including the attractive looking celebrity endorsers. Furthermore, this effect was only revealed from recordings taken from the left hand side of the participants. Given that the right side of the brain would orchestrate any EDA responses recorded from the subjects' left side, the current results suggest a dedicated neural response for celebrity endorsed brand platforms. Future work examining the relationship between the specific EDA signature and consumer preferences is discussed.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature and prevalence of bullying behaviours and victimisation experiences among mentally disordered offenders within a medium secure unit (MSU). Design/methodology/approach – In all, 35 adult male patients completed the Direct and Indirect Patient behaviour Checklist-Hospital Version (DIPC-H). Findings – Indirect aggression was reported more frequently than direct aggression, although there was no statistically significant difference between the prevalence estimates. The most prevalent DIPC-H categories were the pure victim and not involved categories followed by bully/victim and pure bully. Membership of the pure bully category was predicted by being on a particular ward. Research limitations/implications – Given that the study was a preliminary investigation into the nature and prevalence of bullying behaviours in a MSU, the sample size is limited. Consequently, it is difficult to generalise the findings. It would be useful for future research to focus on differences between levels of security using larger sample sizes to enable a greater understanding of the prevalence of bullying in secure settings and associated factors. Practical implications – Further evidence is provided by the current research that indirect bullying and victimisation behaviours are reported more frequently by patients. The importance of anti-bullying procedures and interventions in secure settings is emphasised and recommendations that can be applied across various forensic settings are described. Better-informed interventions can then be implemented with the aim to manage bullying behaviours in secure settings. The one “pure bully” in the current study was on a rehabilitation ward. This highlights that such behaviours occur on lesser secure wards and serves as an important reminder to ensure that staff do not become complacent. Originality/value – As there is only one published study to date that has focused on bullying behaviours in a MSU, the current study will contribute to the dearth of literature in this area and assist professionals working in secure settings to better understand the nature and prevalence of bullying behaviours among mentally disordered offenders.