The Effect of Mood and Social Outlook on Hypothetical Juridic Decisions1

Data are reported for a laboratory experiment which examines both the impact of information about remote social events on judgments of defendants' guilt or innocence in two court cases and the roles of cognitive and affective elements in mediating these judgments. Subjects were exposed to one of four pretested news bulletins which covaried cognitive factors (positive or negative social information) and affective ones (positive or negative mood stimuli). In accord with previous findings, the results indicate that social information and the changes in social outlook that it caused were of primary importance in altering subjects' judgments about defendants. Subjects who heard positive social information in radio newscasts were more lenient in their judgments of defendants than were those who heard negative social information. Additional findings pertaining to the mediators of this effect suggest that positive mood amplified the impact of social information whatever its direction, while negative mood attenuated it.     

Effects of neuroimaging evidence on mock juror decision making

During the penalty phase of capital trials, defendants may introduce mitigating evidence that argues for a punishment "less than death." In the past few years, a novel form of mitigating evidence-brain scans made possible by technological advances in neuroscience-has been proffered by defendants to support claims that brain abnormalities reduce their culpability. This exploratory study assessed the impact of neuroscience evidence on mock jurors' sentencing recommendations and impressions of a capital defendant. Using actual case facts, we manipulated diagnostic evidence presented by the defense (psychosis diagnosis; diagnosis and neuropsychological test results; or diagnosis, test results, and neuroimages) and future dangerousness evidence presented by the prosecution (low or high risk). Recommendations for death sentences were affected by the neuropsychological and neuroimaging evidence: defendants deemed at high risk for future dangerousness were less likely to be sentenced to death when jurors had this evidence than when they did not. Neuropsychological and neuroimaging evidence also had mitigating effects on impressions of the defendant. We describe study limitations and pose questions for further research.     

Effects of Defendant Ethnicity on Juries' Dispositions of Felony Cases1

This research examined jury decisions in 317 noncapital felony cases in El Paso, Texas, and assessed the impact of juror ethnicity on jury trial outcomes. Results revealed that there was no relation between defendant ethnicity and the probability of conviction. Anglo American defendants, however, received sentences that were approximately twice as severe as Hispanic defendants. Sentences imposed by juries were significantly related to defendant ethnicity and type of crime for which they were tried. Sentences were also influenced by defendant ethnicity in interaction with jury ethnic composition. Important differences appeared when there was a critical mass of 6 or more Hispanics on juries. This study, using criminal court data, provides a unique opportunity to examine the utility of social psychological theories for understanding actual trial outcomes.     

社会认同对抑郁的影响及其理论解释

社会认同作为个体在群际和内群体层面的社会联结,总体上对抑郁产生了积极影响,表现为认同程度、认同重要性、认同群体数量以及认同变化的影响等4个方面。现有研究从需求、认知和行为层面探讨了社会认同影响抑郁的中介因素,并检验了身份认同动机和消极群体评价两个调节因素。社会认同视角下的4种理论分别从社会医治、心理资源、认同变化以及认同层次等不同角度解释了社会认同影响抑郁的心理机制。未来应厘清社会认同对抑郁的深层影响机制,重视社会认同影响抑郁的调节因素,及建构社会认同影响抑郁的能动-共生模型。     

On the Knowledge of Politics and the Politics of Knowledge: How a Social Representations Approach Helps Us Rethink the Subject of Political Psychology

Fifty years ago, Serge Moscovici first outlined a theory of social representations. In this article, we attempt to discuss and to contextualize research that has been inspired by this original impetus from the particular angle of its relevance to political psychology. We argue that four defining components of social representations need to be taken into account, and that these elements need to be articulated with insights from the social identity tradition about the centrality of self and group constructions in order to develop original insights into political psychological phenomena. First, social representations are shared knowledge, and the way interpretations of the world are collectively elaborated is critical to the way people are able to act within the world. Second, social representations are meta‐knowledge, which implies that what people assume relevant others know, think, or value is part of their own interpretative grid, and that collective behavior can often be influenced more powerfully at the level of meta‐representations than of intimate beliefs. Third, social representations are enacted communication, which means that social influence is exerted by the factors that constrain social practices as much as by the discourse that interprets these practices. Fourth, social representations are world‐making assumptions: collective understandings do not only reflect existing realities but often bring social reality into being. Put together, these four components provide a distinctive theoretical perspective on power, resistance and conflict. The added conceptual value of this perspective is illustrated by showing how it allows revisiting ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia. We conclude with implications for research practices and discuss how the proposed model of social representations invites us to define new priorities and challenges for the methods used to study political psychological phenomena.     

Witness preparation training with real and simulated criminal defendants

Two studies examined the impact of witness preparation training with criminal defendants. In the first study, mock criminal defendants testified twice on videotape about minor crimes they were accused of but had not committed. Approximately half underwent witness preparation between their first and second testimony simulations. In the second study, eight public defender clients were videotaped during testimony simulations both before and after being prepared to testify. In both studies, ratings by trained evaluators indicated that witness preparation was associated with increases in the use of several testimony delivery skills, improvements in overall testimony quality, and reductions in apparent guilt. Training was also associated in both studies with an unintended decrease in expressiveness. Ratings from the mock defendant study further suggested that prepared defendants were seen as more credible than unprepared defendants because they used more effective testimony delivery skills, and as less likely to be guilty than unprepared defendants because they were perceived as being more credible.     

Back to Social Behavior: Mining the Mundane

The factors influencing a defendant's decision to accept a plea bargain were investigated in a field study. Convicted defendants who had plea bargained their cases (N = 67) were interviewed. Data were collected that included: reasons for plea-bargain acceptance, firmness of decision, satisfaction with the plea bargain, and other plea-related information. A factor analysis showed seven significant factors contributing to plea-bargain acceptance. A subsequent discriminant analysis showed that defendants who had accepted a plea bargain primarily to minimize suffering tended to feel that their best deal was mediocre and that the defense attorney had little input into the decision. Defendants accepting for reasons other than minimization of suffering tended to feel pressure from the prosecutor and felt that conviction was likely. Additionally, firmness and satisfaction with the decision to accept were negatively related to external sources of pressure.     

Peer Victimization in Middle School

ABSTRACT

African American (n = 350) and Latino (n = 435) 6th grade students from eight middle schools completed self-report measures of peer victimization and psychological adjustment (i.e., self-esteem, anxiety, loneliness, depression, and physical symptoms). Peer nomination procedures were used to determine which students had reputations as victims and which students were accepted, rejected, and perceived as most «cool.» In addition, homeroom teachers rated participating students on social behavior and academic engagement and students' grades were collected from school records. We created four victim groups based on self-and peer perceptions. «True» victims (agreement between self and peer) experienced the worst outcomes on all of the adjustment variables examined. However, different adjustment difficulties were reported for victim groups where there was disagreement between self-and peer views. Self-perceived victimization was predictive of psychological maladjustment, whereas the reputational measure was more related to peer rejection and negative teacher ratings. The implications of the findings for both accurate identification of victims of harassment and targeted intervention strategies were discussed.     

Assessing the "evolving standards of decency:" perceptions of capital punishment for juveniles

This study examines whether public opinion parallels recent judicial and statutory changes limiting the applicability of capital sentences to offenders younger than 18 years old. Two hundred and thirty-five undergraduate students were administered a vignette of a capital case and asked to render a sentence of death or life in prison without parole. Results revealed that age of the defendant was not a significant predictor of sentence type; participants sentenced 16- and 17-year-old defendants similarly to 18- and 25-year-old defendants. Therefore, public opinion appears inconsistent with legal and legislative changes to abandon the practice of executing juveniles. Findings also suggested that perceived level of the defendant's responsibility and general opinion about capital sentences significantly predicted sentence type; perceptions of greater responsibility were associated with an increased likelihood of a death sentence. However, participants did not perceive differences in responsibility between juvenile and adult defendants. In addition, participants were more comfortable sentencing defendants to death compared with life in prison.     

The Role of Death Qualification in Capital Trials Involving Juvenile Defendants1

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of death qualification in capital trials involving juvenile defendants. Two hundred residents of the 12^th Judicial Circuit in Florida completed a booklet of stimulus materials that contained the following: One question that measured participants' level of support for the death penalty; One Witt death‐qualification question; a summary of the guilt and penalty phases of a capital case involving either an adult or a juvenile defendant; sentence preference; the Revised Legal Attitudes Questionnaire (RLAQ); and standard demographic questions. Results indicated that death‐qualified participants were more likely to sentence both defendants to death. In addition, death‐qualified participants were more likely to recommend the death sentence for the juvenile defendant. Legal implications are discussed.     

Wundt,Völkerpsychologie,and experimental social psychology

Wilhelm Wundt distinguished between "experimental psychology" and Volkerpsychologie. It is often claimed that Wundt maintained that social psychological phenomena, the subject matter of V?lkerpsychologie, could not be investigated experimentally but must be explored via comparative-historical methods. In this article it is argued that it is doubtful if many of the passages usually cited as evidence that Wundt held such a view actually such such a view. It is also argued that if Wundt did hold such a view, it was inconsistent with his own general theoretical position and methodological practice. It is suggested that it is anachronistic to attribute such a view to Wundt, because he appears to have had little interest in the experimental analysis of the synchronic social dynamics of psychological processes. Most of Wundt's arguments about the inappropriateness of experimentation were directed against the introspective analysis of diachronic historical processes.     

Patterns of coping in rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract

One hundred and fifty eight outpatients were assessed on a 36 item coping questionnaire in order to examine the impact of coping on the disability and psychological well being of individuals with rheumatoid arthritis. To consider the total pattern of coping strategies accepted and rejected by these individuals, the data was subjected to a cluster analysis. Hierarchical clustering techniques suggested the four group solution as optimum. Following a k means iterative solution external validity for the four groups was considered. The main findings indicate that the pattern of coping exerts a significant influence on symptom perception, disability and psychological well being. The findings are discussed in relation to two approaches to the impact of coping on chronic illness.     

Do Extenuating Circumstances Influence African American Women's Attitudes Toward Suicide?

African American women commit suicide less than other U.S. women and men, perhaps partly due to strong, anti-suicide attitudes. To see if suicide attitudes might be softened by extenuating circumstances such as terminal illness, 192 African American and European American women imagined themselves in one of four extenuating circumstances, then completed measures of suicide acceptability and religiosity. Both ethnic groups reported a greater likelihood of suicide when imagining depression, regardless of religiosity. Religiosity, but not extenuating circumstances, corresponded with negative attitudes toward suicide and physician assisted suicide. These African American and European American young women remained steadfastly against suicide, regardless of circumstance.     

Pavlov's methodological behaviorism as a pre-Socratic contribution of the melding of the differential and experimental psychology

The differential/experimental distinction that Cronbach specified is important because any adequate account of psychological phenomena requires the recognition of the validity of both approaches, and a meaningful melding of the two. This paper suggests that Pavlov's work in psychology, based on earlier traditions of inquiry that can be traced back to the pre-Socratics, provides a potential way of achieving this melding, although such features as systematic rather than anecdotal methods of observation need to be added. Pavlov's methodological behaviorist approach is contrasted with metaphysical behaviorism (as exemplified explicitly in Watson and Skinner, and implicitly in the computer-metaphorical, information-processing explanations employed by current "cognitive" psychology). A common feature of the metaphysical approach is that individual-differences variables like sex are essentially ignored, or relegated to ideological categories such as the treatment of sex as merely a "social construction." Examples of research both before and after the "cognitive revolution" are presented where experimental and differential methods are melded, and individual differences are treated as phenomena worthy of investigation rather than as nuisance factors that merely add to experimental error.     

Method and Explanation in History and in Social Representations

A commonly held point of view defines a discipline as a science if it uses inductive and/or deductive methods in studying phenomena in question, because these methods, it is believed, will enable generalization of findings. Both history and theory of social representations study unique phenomena and therefore, for these disciplines, induction and deduction are unsuitable methods of exploration. History and theory of social representations treat a historical event and a social psychological phenomenon, respectively, as dynamic, systemic and one of its kind. Using relational epistemologies, these disciplines produce context-dependent and context-specific knowledge. Whilst similarities among historical, as well as among social psychological occurrences do exist, they do not yield themselves to inductive generalization. Studies of unique cases require different kinds of generalization; rather than generalising to populations, they pose questions about generalizability, or transferability, with respect to theories of other historical events or social psychological phenomena.     

Understanding Suicide in Socially Vulnerable Contexts: Psychological Autopsy in a Small Town in Mexico

In Mexico, suicides are increasing in certain latitudes where local rates have grown to levels of alert; suicide is also the second most common cause of death for the group aged 15 to 19. The psychological autopsy method was utilized to uncover and analyze common factors in all of the registered suicides within 2011 and 2012 in a small town of the state of Guanajuato, located in the center of Mexico. A total of nine decedents were analyzed, and 22 interviews were conducted. The most salient factors were as follows: poverty, financial stress, substance abuse, low levels of education, conflictive relationships, and a poor handling of emotions. The concepts of social exclusion and vulnerability were employed to analyze suicides as symptoms of a much deeper problem of this country, suggesting that anomie and social malady are nowadays important suicidal factors, mostly for children and young people.     

脑功能定位在社会认知研究中的作用及其启示

本文阐述了脑功能定位的具体技术及其与社会心理现象相结合的心理神经模型。这种结合的趋势有助于促进神经科学和社会心理学的发展,有助于解释社会心理现象中固有的一些具体问题。同时,由于社会心理现象的复杂性,因此并不一定都适合直接进行脑功能定位。     

Death penalty mitigation and cult membership: The case of the Kirtland killings

When cult activities precipitate violence against others, the interface of religious belief and practice, and law becomes complex. Personal and group psychological factors can assume importance not only to explain the crimes, but also in the processing of cases, particularly where a death penalty/mitigation trial is involved. While destructive cult membership has not been accepted in the legal system as a basis for an insanity plea, mitigation from the death penalty or other reduced responsibility outcomes can be justified and was effective in defence of Kirtland cult members. Outcomes in the Kirtland case reflected statutory requirements and procedural operations in complex constellations with roughly proportionate results. The paper details specifics of the case, defense strategies, prosecutorial functions, and religious and psychological underpinnings which led into acts for which neither religious freedom nor psychological disturbance could exempt from Penalty.     

浅析死刑认同的心理根源

我国民众普遍认同死刑,这种"死刑认同"具有三种心理情绪根源:死亡情结、社会情感以及正义报复感。死刑认同实质上是国民的一种个人情绪和社会情感的表达和要求。取消死刑是必然趋势,但必须具备相应的社会条件。     

Towards a spiritual psychology: The synthesis of the desert fathers

The author presents a model of spiritual enlightenment based on an analysis of the aphorisms and experiences of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th century monastics of the deserts of Egypt contained in the standard 18th century Greek Orthodox compilation of their writings. It is argued that the attainment of a hierarchy of four basic virtues, humility, obedience, repentance, and love, incorporated into the religious system of these early Christian contemplatives exemplifies a sophisticated knowledge of contemporary dynamic and social psychological phenomena. The author identifies three steps in the process of enlightenment proffered by this system, beginning with the practical spiritual life, in which the specific control and understanding of dynamic and social psychological principles come into play; moving on to an intermediate level of action based on natural knowledge, as it is derived from psychological self-understanding; and culminating in a level of personal self-intergration and self-realization that is mystical in nature. Thenovus homo as understood in the Christian West is contrasted with the enlightened person as he emerges from this interactive hierarchy of virtues and levels of self-knowledge in the system of the desert Fathers. The paper is written with a heuristic tone and suggests that further attention be directed toward the interaction between psychological principles and mystical notions in traditional Eastern Christian literature.This paper was originally presented by the author at the invitation of the Theological Institute of Lund University, Lund, Sweden, in the autumn of 1987.