
Agata DebowskaSWPS University | SWPS · Faculty of Psychology
Agata Debowska
PhD
About
70
Publications
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
September 2017 - present
Publications
Publications (70)
Latent class (LCA) and latent profile (LPA) analysis represent methodological approaches to identify subgroups of maltreated individuals. Although research examining child abuse and neglect (CAN) profiles is still rare, the application of person-centered techniques to clarify CAN types co-occurrence has substantially increased in recent years. Ther...
Evidence demonstrates that exposure to prosocial video games can increase players' prosocial behaviour, prosocial thoughts, and empathic responses. Prosocial gaming has also been used to reduce gender-based violence among young people, but the use of video games to this end as well as evaluations of their effectiveness are rare. The objective of th...
Background
The time of widespread outbreaks of infectious diseases can lead to elevated stress and mental health problems among all persons affected, and in particular those sub-groups of the population that are at an increased risk of mental health problems. One such vulnerable group constitutes university students. The aim of this study is to ass...
This pilot RCT tested the potential efficacy of a brief internet-based, passive psychoeducation intervention, Free From Abuse, in promoting healthy relationships among young adults. Participants aged 18-24 years were randomly assigned to an intervention-treatment (n = 71) or a placebo-control condition (n = 77). Participants in the treatment arm ha...
Person-centred approaches, such as latent class (LCA) and latent profile (LPA) analyses, aid the identification of sub-groups within sample populations. These methods can identify patterns of co-occurrence between different forms of intimate partner violence (IPV), providing valuable information for prevention and intervention efforts. The aim of t...
The study developed and validated the Modern Adolescent Dating Violence Attitude (MADVA) scale, examining young people's attitudes towards online and offline variants of adolescent dating violence and abuse (ADVA). Data were collected among 2011 adolescents from England, aged 10-25 (M 15.72 years). Dimensionality and construct validity of the MADVA...
Childhood adversities have been linked to psychosocial outcomes, but it remains uncertain whether subtypes of adversity exert different effects on outcomes. Research is also needed to explore the dynamic interplay between adversity and psychosocial outcomes from childhood to mid-adolescence. This study aimed to investigate these relationships and t...
Prior research reported a significant association between intimate partner violence (IPV) victimisation and negative parenting, but there was an overreliance on U.S. samples and families from low socioeconomic status backgrounds. Therefore, this quasi-experimental study examined the association between recent IPV victimisation and abusive parenting...
Purpose
Few studies assess how child abuse and neglect (CAN) affects adolescents’ mental health. Further, the majority of studies conducted to date discount the individual CAN items and report overall prevalence rates for different types of abuse and neglect. The purpose of this study was to examine the levels of and gender differences in CAN subty...
Background. The time of widespread outbreaks of infectious diseases can lead to elevated stress and mental health problems among all persons affected, and in particular those subgroups of the population that are at an increased risk of mental health problems. One such vulnerable group constitutes university students. The aim of this study is to ass...
Recently, we have witnessed a rapid increase in the number of research studies in the area of brain fog, predominantly due to the fact that it is reported to be a frequent long COVID condition. However, the construct of brain fog remains ill-defined and a common method of assessment of the condition is lacking. Therefore, the main aim of the curren...
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an extensive public health concern, largely affecting women aged 20-24 years. Research suggests that bisexual women are more likely than heterosexual and homosexual women to be victims of IPV. Bisexual women are also more likely to be blamed for their abuse experiences after disclosing, a phenomenon known as victi...
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) commonly co-occur, and researchers often estimate their impact using a cumulative risk approach. The person-centred approach offers another approach to operationalise the co-occurrence of ACEs. This study aims to estimate latent classes of ACEs in a sample of UK children, examine their relationship with emotiona...
Background
To date, there is a lack of measures for capturing a broad spectrum of psychophysiological stress reactions that can be administered on a daily basis and in different contexts. A need for such a measure is especially salient in settings where stress processes can unfold momentarily and substantially fluctuate daily. Therefore, the main a...
Victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) are frequently blamed and disbelieved, which may affect their willingness to report their abuse experiences. This vignette-based online experiment examines whether victim attractiveness (attractive vs unattractive) and the type of abuse suffered (psychological vs psychological plus physical abuse) may impa...
Background: To date, there is a lack of measures for capturing a broad spectrum of psychophysiological stress reactions that can be administered on a daily basis and in different contexts. A need for such a measure is especially salient in settings where stress processes can unfold momentarily and substantially fluctuate daily. Therefore, the main...
The current study objective was to develop a revised version of the Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale (PPTS-R) with an increased number of indicators to more reliably capture the four dimensions of the Psychopathic Personality Traits Model (PPTM). Dimensionality, construct validity, and reliability of the PPTS-R was examined among general (N =...
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been associated with causes of early death, addiction, mental illness, and poor health. However, studies investigating underlying mechanisms often rely on cross-sectional data or inappropriate study designs. To prevent the negative sequelae associated with ACEs, it is imperative to understand the mechanisms...
Background: The purpose of the current study was to examine the differences in primary and secondary psychopathy scores, criminal social identity dimensions (cognitive centrality, in-group affect, and in-group ties), and criminal network between four groups of juvenile offenders: murderers, attempted murderers, recidivistic nonhomicidal offenders,...
Steeped in tradition and historical significance, criminal justice systems throughout the world have long considered jury trials an essential feature of a fair and just due process. Despite vast procedural variation between jurisdictions and long-established criticisms surrounding the use of lay participation within legal disputes (discussed in Cha...
Violence against women and girls is widespread in the Caribbean, which may be due to heightened acceptance of such acts in this specific social context. In spite of this, studies investigating attitudes towards violence and their correlates among participants drawn from the region are missing. In order to address this void in the literature, we exa...
Background: Youth non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and suicide are major public health concerns, but limited data are available on the prevalence and correlates of these problems in developing countries. The aim of this study is to describe experiences of three suicidal phenomena (NSSI, suicidal ideation [SI], and suicide attempt [SA]) among childre...
Criminal social identity (CSI) is a factor for criminal behavior. CSI should therefore be a target of interventive strategies aiming to reduce the risk of re-offending. To date, there is limited knowledge on how CSI is expressed among individuals with different criminal histories, undermining the efforts to develop and target appropriate rehabilita...
The aim of this study was to compare prisoners (n = 772), community adults (n = 1201), university students (n = 2080), and adolescents (n = 472) on four sets of psychopathic traits (affective responsiveness, cognitive responsiveness, interpersonal manipulation, and egocentricity), using a psychopathy measure which does not index criminal/antisocial...
The main aim of this study was to examine the associations between emotion dysregulation and psychopathology in adolescence. A representative sample of 1500 adolescent students (50% female) aged 12 to 19 years (M = 15.08, SD = 1.44) was recruited from schools and colleges located in the province of district Punjab, Pakistan, using a stratified samp...
A wide range of child and caregiver characteristics, including parental psychopathology, parents’ childhood experiences of abuse, parenting stress, child age, parent age, child disabilities, socio-cultural background, and caregiver’s relationship to the child, have been reported to contribute to increased risk of violence directed against children....
The current study aimed to explore the correlates of CSI in a single study, using the recently validated MDSI (Measure of Delinquent Social Identity). Path analysis was conducted among a sample of opportunistically selected youth offenders (N = 536; age range from 12 to 17 years), separately for boys (n = 348; M age = 15.28 years) and girls (n = 18...
Purpose: The study aim was to develop and validate the None in Three Victim Responsiveness Assessment (Ni3: VRA) examining affective and cognitive responsiveness toward victims of intimate partner violence.
Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected at two time points in a sample of 359 young people from Barbados and Grenada (56.27% female;...
Childhood abuse is associated with increased psychopathic features among girls, but most prior research is based on data from correctional samples of female delinquents and less is known about how specific forms of childhood abuse affect specific features of psychopathy. Using a school-based community sample of 696 girls aged 9-17 years from Barbad...
The Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale (PPTS; Boduszek et al., 2016) is a personality-based psychopathy assessment tool consisting of four subscales: affective responsiveness, cognitive responsiveness, interpersonal manipulation, and egocentricity. Although the measure offers a promising alternative to other, more behaviorally weighted scales, t...
The current study aimed to develop and validate the Measure of Delinquent Social Identity (MDSI). Dimensionality and construct validity of the MDSI was investigated in a sample of youth offenders (N = 536). Four alternative models of the MDSI were estimated using Mplus. The model identified as being the best fit for the data was a bifactor model wi...
The current study used latent class analysis to uncover groups of youths with specific abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual) profiles in and outside the family, and identify how membership in each abuse group is associated with behavioral outcomes.Data were collected among a sample of male (n = 662; M age = 13.02 years) and female (n = 689; M age...
The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence and correlates of suicide attempts (SA), suicidal ideation (SI), and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) within a sample of community-based youth offenders (M age = 15.33 years) engaging with a Youth Offending Team (YOT). Findings revealed the highest prevalence rates for NSSI (20.6%), followed by SI...
Interpersonal violence iswidespread in the Eastern Caribbean, which may be a remnant of the violent colonisation history noted in the region. Although official statistics on the occurrence of interpersonal violence are collected in Barbados and Grenada, such acts tend to be under-reported. As such, the aim of this project was to gaina better insigh...
Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify meaningful subtypes of psychopathic traits among prisoners. Another aim was to estimate the association between psychopathy class membership and type of offending (homicide, general violent, property, and white-collar offences).
Methods: A systematically selected representative sample of 1,126 adult...
The current study objective was to develop a revised version of the Measure of Criminal Social Identity (MCSI) with an increased number of indicators to more reliably capture three MCSI dimensions. Dimensionality and construct validity of the Measure of Criminal Social Identity – Revised (MCSI-R) was examined among a sample of systematically select...
Purpose: Previous research conceptualized murderers as highly callous and self-gratifying individuals, offending as a result of psychopathic tendencies. The current exploration sought to verify whether murderers differ on psychopathy and criminal social identity from recidivistic and first time incarcerated offenders.
Methods: The study compared...
Although psychopathy construct (SRP-SF) was assessed among various samples, prior research did not investigate whether the model proposed by Hare and colleagues can be used to capture psychopathy scores derived from forensic and non-forensic populations. The main objective of the current study was to test dimensionality, construct validity, and fac...
Purpose: Prior research has highlighted gender differences in academic motivational attributes, and how these predict academic achievement for each gender, however, a vast amount of inconsistency exists amongst such literature. The main purpose of the present study was to examine the predictive value of academic motivation (achievement goal, leanin...
Whilst those currently serving prison sentences for sexual violence can be identified and receive treatment, the number of prisoners with a history of sexual violence against female partners is unknown. Methods to identify prisoners with a proclivity for such violence and accurately assess the risk they pose before and after incarceration are there...
Research examining child abuse and neglect (CAN) profiles among adult offender populations is lacking. Therefore, the primary aim of the present study was to address this limitation by using latent class analysis (LCA) to identify meaningful classes of individuals who have experienced physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, as well as neglec...
Background. Identifying the psychological predictors of suicide risk is essential because these variables may be amenable to change in treatment, unlike demographic or historical factors. Aims. The aim of this study was to examine the predictors of past two-week suicidal ideation for males and females separately. Method. Participants were 1184 heal...
The main aim of the current study was to develop and validate the Self-Esteem Measure for Prisoners (SEM-P), composed of personal and prison self-esteem, among a systematically selected sample of prisoners (N = 1,794). Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the SEM-P was best captured with the bifactor conceptualization reflecting two grouping...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating role of psychopathy facets on the relationship between traumatic exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomology.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants were male prisoners incarcerated in the UK.
Findings
The analysis revealed differential associations between th...
The integrated psychosocial model of criminal social identity attempts to synthesize, distil, and extend our knowledge and understanding of why people develop criminal social identity, with a particular focus on the psychological and social factors involved. We suggest that the development of criminal social identity results from a complex interpla...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of period of incarceration, criminal friend index (a retrospective measure intended to quantify criminal associations before first incarceration), and four psychopathy factors (interpersonal manipulation, callous affect, erratic lifestyle, and antisocial behavior) in criminal social identity (CS...
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the dimensionality, composite reliability, and incremental validity of the Measure of Criminal Social Identity (MCSI) in a sample of Pakistani incarcerated delinquents ( n =315) following translation of the measure into Urdu.
Design/methodology/approach
– Four alternative factor models, with uncorr...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was to review, summarize, and critically engage with the most recent findings into the dimensionality of the PCL-R, SRP-III, and SRP-SF. Another objective was to provide a set of directions for future research.
Methods
A search in PubMed, PsychInfo, Scopus, Web of Science, Science Direct, and Google Scholar was p...
Purpose: The aim of this study was to create and validate a brief self-report scale of psychopathic personality traits for research purposes which would grasp the essence of a psychopathic personality, regardless of respondents’ age, gender, cultural background, and criminal history.
Methods: The Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale (PPTS), The M...
There is a dearth of research investigating psychosocial correlates of attitudes towards reporting child sexual abuse (CSA) in males and females, and a lack of such studies drawing on participants from the UK. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to examine gender differences in social and psychological predictors of attitudes towards rep...
The main aim of the present study was to examine the relationships between four psychopathy dimensions (Interpersonal Manipulation, Callous Affect, Erratic Lifestyle, and Antisocial Behaviour) as well as childhood exposure to violence and reactive aggression in men and women. Participants were a sample of working adults (N = 319) recruited from the...
Background: There is considerable debate about the underlying factor structure of the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL: SV). An established view is that it reflects a unitary construct underpinned by two correlated factors. More recent research has, however, undermined this conceptualisation.
Aims: Our aim was to compare 10 competing...
Purpose - The main objective of this paper is to examine the role of four psychopathy factors (Interpersonal Manipulation, Callous Affect, Erratic Lifestyle, and Antisocial Behaviour) and the length of incarceration in reactive aggression. The predictive effect of dissatisfaction with peer relations, childhood experiences of violence, and criminal...
The aim is to assess the effect of imprisonment on rape myth acceptance. The research used a sample of male prisoners incarcerated for non-sexual crimes (n = 98) and a sample of males drawn from the general population (n = 160). Simple linear regression did not indicate a significant effect of incarceration on rape myth acceptance. After controllin...
The present study examined genuine and simulated suicide notes aiming to identify the measures of content that best differentiate between the two. Thirty-three genuine and thirty-three simulated suicide notes were content-analysed and data subjected to smallest space analysis (SSA), a Multidimensional Scaling Procedure. The core of all suicide note...
The main aim of the present study was to specify and test a structural model to examine the relationships between four psychopathy dimensions (Interpersonal Manipulation, Callous Affect, Erratic Lifestyle and Antisocial Behaviour), childhood exposure to violence, and rape myth acceptance while controlling for gender, age, sample type (prisoner vs....
The 64-item Hare Self-Report Psychopathy Scale was translated into Polish with the aim to test construct validity and dimensionality, incremental validity, and composite reliability of the measure in a sample of working adults (N = 319). Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the best fitting model was the bifactor conceptualization containing...
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to present and provide a critical review of most recent studies inquiring into brain abnormalities in psychopathy.
Design/methodology/approach
– The authors provide an overview of the findings of neurobiological studies conducted in the last five years. Publications chosen for review were found using Web of S...
Purpose – The aim of this paper is to present and provide a critical review of most recent studies inquiring into brain abnormalities in psychopathy.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors provide an overview of the findings of neurobiological studies conducted in the last five years. Publications chosen for review were found using Web of Scien...
The 64-item Hare Self-Report Psychopathy Scale was translated into Polish with the aim to test construct validity and dimensionality, incremental validity, and composite reliability of the measure in a sample of working adults (N = 319). Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the best fitting model was the bifac-tor conceptualization containing...
Purpose: The aim of the current study was to investigate the impact of psychopathy factors and gang membership on moral disengagement while controlling for age, ethnicity, having run away from home, family member and/or friend arrests, substance misuse, parental physical fights, violence exposure (victimization and witnessing), and maternal warmth...