Second Edition: Perspectives on Violence and Sexual Harassment
A special issue of Behavioral Sciences (ISSN 2076-328X). This special issue belongs to the section "Health Psychology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2026 | Viewed by 17
Special Issue Editor
Interests: gender violence; sexual harassment prevention
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Following the success and strong interest generated by the first edition of our Special Issue on behavioral change for overcoming violence and sexual harassment, we are pleased to announce the launch of a second edition.
Theoretical perspectives and their application in interventions in various professional fields and social settings (workplace, universities, schools, community, health services, etc.) have been successful not only in changing behaviors regarding the prevention of violence and sexual harassment but also in supporting victims to become survivors. These involve not only victims but also the whole community as upstanders, supporting them and rejecting any violent or harassing attitude. These interventions are based on scientific evidence on social impact from socioneuroscience—a combination of neuroscience and social science contributions. The latest findings from socioneuroscience have contributed to the understanding of the types 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 the overcoming of such violence, as well as the memory reconstruction of violent relationships.
In this Special Issue, we welcome systematic reviews, short communications, and original studies (qualitative or quantitative) of successful interventions on individual, group, or community approaches in diverse contexts that contribute to understanding what promotes the behavioral changes that prevent violence and sexual harassment and help victims become survivors. Suggested topics for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Theoretical contributions from socioneuroscience to cognitive science related to behavioral change for 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.
- 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 a victim.
- Psychological effects of being a victim of isolating gender violence and being a direct victim of violence and sexual harassment.
- Dialogic reconstruction of memories in sporadic violent intimate relationships.
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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-blind 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 2200 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.
Keywords
- gender violence
- sexual harassment
- socioneuroscience
- cognitive science
- behavioral change
- interventions
- prevention
- bystander intervention
- psychological effects
- survivors
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