Perspectives on Violence and Sexual Harassment

Dear Colleagues,

Theoretical perspectives and their application in interventions across various professional fields and social settings (workplaces, universities, schools, communities, health services, etc.) have been successful in changing behaviors regarding the prevention of violence and sexual harassment but also in supporting victims to become survivors. They involve not only the victims but also the whole community as upstanders supporting them and rejecting any violent or harassing attitude. These interventions are based on scientific evidence of social impact from socioneuroscience working together with neuroscience and with social science contributions. The latest findings from socioneuroscience are contributing to the understanding of the kind of social interactions that lead to different behavioral manifestations regarding the reproduction or prevention of violence and sexual harassment. These are related to the preventive socialization of violence, the conscious versus unconscious processes of volition and social control associated with the dominant coercive discourse in society that depicts violent behaviors as attractive, and its overcoming, as well as the memory reconstruction of violent relationships.

This Special Issue calls for systematic reviews, short communications, and original studies (qualitative or quantitative) of successful interventions as individual, group or community approaches in diverse contexts that contribute to understanding what promotes behavioral changes that prevent violence and sexual harassment and help victims to become survivors. Suggested topics for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

• Theoretical contributions from socioneuroscience and cognitive science related to behavioral change towards overcoming violence and sexual harassment;
• Behavioral changes in the community (families, children, students, teachers, educators, workers) promoted by interventions aimed at the prevention of violence and sexual harassment in schools, universities, workplaces, and other social settings;
• Behavioral changes and psychological effects in the process of moving from being a victim to becoming a survivor of violence and sexual harassment;
• The behavioral changes and psychological effects of turning from being a passive bystander in a situation of violence and sexual harassment to being an upstander who stands in support of the victim;

• The psychological effects of being a victim of isolating gender violence and being a direct victim of violence and sexual harassment;
• The dialogic reconstruction of memories in sporadic violent intimate relationships.

Abstract submission deadline: September 30, 2024

Notification of abstract acceptance: October 15, 2024

Proposed submission deadline: January 31, 2025

Prof. Dr. Rosa Valls-Carol
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Behavioral Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.