Community psychology and injustice in the criminal justice system

In this short paper, we consider the partnership between psychology and the criminal justice system in Western societies and critically reflect on the notion of criminal justice as expressed in such a system. Focusing on how the criminal justice system operates in the UK, and in particular in Scotland, we consider the way the system criminalizes those who previously have been socially and economically disadvantaged. We ask whether community psychology has become negligent in the attention it brings to such a pernicious form of victim blaming and as such has shown insufficient critical engagement with systems that create social harm, and whether it is paying enough attention to the impact of a criminal justice system that is contributing to the creation of a more punitive, fractured and unjust society. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rape and sexual assault in investigative psychology: the contribution of sex offenders' research to offender profiling

Research on sex offenders has mainly guided clinical practice for risk assessment and therapeutic intervention. However, the current scientific knowledge on these offenders and their crimes is, in many aspects, of great importance to criminal investigations. Consequently, there is a need to build bridges between investigative psychology and the research being conducted on sex offenders. Four areas of research on sex offenders that have clear implications to investigative psychology can be identified: (1) the consistency or ‘crime‐switching’ patterns of sex offenders; (2) the recidivism patterns of different types of sex offenders; (3) the police response to specific victim characteristics; and (4) the A → C equation of sexual assaults. This paper argues for a need to establish a dialogue between these two fields of research so that knowledge about sex offenders keeps growing whilst being able to inform policing practices in investigative psychology. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Features and investigative implications of muti murder in South Africa

Drawing upon anthropological, legal and forensic publications, an interview with a South African Zulu traditional healer and direct information gained during homicide investigations, the nature of Muti murder is discussed. Muti murder is defined as a murder in which body parts are removed from a live victim for the sole purpose of using the victim's body parts medicinally. These body parts are then often mixed with other ingredients or used alone to make a medicine called muti. Muti is a Zulu (umuthi) word meaning medicine. The victim usually dies as a result of blood loss from the wounds. While muti murders have occurred throughout history in South African culture, little is known about them and little research exists on the phenomenon. The term muti murder has been used interchangeably with the term ritual or sacrificial murder, often adding to confusion in terminology and definitions regarding these types of cases. This paper provides an overview of muti murder, explains the context in which these types of murder occur, defines the offenders and victims involved, and provides guidelines for investigating these types of murders. Two cases where muti murder was suspected are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Video playback,affective witnessing,and the mobility of trauma: Video evidence of violent crime in the criminal justice system

In today's technologically mediated society, video is increasingly relied upon as an objective and reliable source of evidence in the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes. The now pervasive presence of violent video in the criminal justice system, however, presents new challenges for understanding repeated work-related exposure to and witnessing of potentially traumatic material and its impacts. Thus, this project seeks to qualitatively examine the relational affective processes that occur among criminal justice professionals when violent crimes are captured on video. We present four key categories organized around the circumstances of exposure and its impacts: 1) playback in the investigative and pre-trial process; 2) sharing videos among colleagues; 3) playing videos for victims, witnesses, and families and; 4) transmission in the broader public. Findings suggest this work involves deeply embodied processes where video evidence of violent crime enables a virtual presence at scenes and an emotional proximity to events through new forms of witnessing. These affective experiences are one relational dynamic that keeps witnessing active, thus expanding the mobility of trauma, its reach and potential impacts.     

An evaluation and comparison of claims made in behavioural investigative advice reports compiled by the National Policing Improvements Agency in the United Kingdom

This study examined the content of a contemporary sample of behavioural investigative advice reports produced by the National Policing Improvements Agency (NPIA), formally known as the National Centre for Policing Excellence, and compared this sample with previous offender‐profiling samples reported by Alison, Smith, Eastman, and Rainbow in 2003. Forty‐seven reports written in 2005 were content analysed. The reports contained 805 claims, although 96% of the claims contained grounds for their claim, only 34% had any formal support or backing. In terms of confirmability, 70% of the claims were verifiable. However, only 43% were falsifiable, in that they could be objectively measured post‐conviction. Analysis also showed that there were differences when comparing the different types of claims made (i.e. behavioural, temporal) and the different types of reports compiled by the NPIA (i.e. behavioural assessment report, linking report, etc.) Comparisons show that there is a very large positive difference between the contemporary behavioural investigative advice sample and previous non‐NPIA expert advice in terms of the substantiveness of their arguments. Contemporary NPIA behavioural investigative advice has clearer boundaries around the claims made and presents material in a more coherent and evidence‐based format than previous expert advice. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of retributive justice and the use of international criminal tribunals in post‐conflict reconciliation

Four experiments examined people's responses to intergroup violence either committed or suffered by their own group. Experiment 1 demonstrated that Serbs who strongly glorified Serbia were more supportive of future violence against, and less willing to reconcile with, Bosniaks after reading about Serbian victimization by Bosniaks rather than Serbian transgressions against Bosniaks. Replicating these effects with Americans in the context of American–Iranian tensions, Experiment 2 further showed that demands for retributive justice explained why high glorifiers showed asymmetrical reactions to ingroup victimization vs. perpetration. Again in the Serb and the American context, respectively, Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that post‐conflict international criminal tribunals can help satisfy victim group members' desire for retributive justice, and thereby reduce their support for future violence and increase their willingness to reconcile with the perpetrator group. The role of retributive justice and the use of international criminal justice in intergroup conflict (reduction) are discussed.     

咸卦和艮卦的性心理学解释

易学在传统上一向释<咸卦>之"咸"为"感",今人李镜池、高亨、王明、刘正又提出了解释咸卦卦爻辞的三种新说,本文以现代性心理学关于"足恋"的知识为根据指出:咸当训为动,咸卦各爻辞叙述了一对青年男女在恋爱中互相抚摩对方身体各个部位直到亲吻的一连串的"镜头"或"场景",王明的解释是最得当的.由于艮卦爻辞与咸卦爻辞存在可以类推或平移解释的关系,本文从性心理学的角度对艮卦爻辞作了相应的解释.     

Our obligations to future generations: the limits of intergenerational justice and the necessity of the ethics of metaphysics

Abstract

Theories of intergenerational justice are a very common and popular way to conceptualise the obligations currently living people may have to future generations. After briefly pointing out that these theories presuppose certain views about the existence, number and identity of future people, I argue that the presuppositions must themselves be ethically investigated, and that theories of intergenerational justice lack the theoretical resources to be able to do this. On that basis, I claim it is necessary to do the ‘ethics of metaphysics’ in order to fully comprehend what, if anything, we may owe future generations. I defend these claims against some important objections.     

Feminist justice and the case of undocumented migrant women and children: a critical dialog with Benhabib,Nussbaum, Young,and O'Neill

In recent years, scholars and researchers have discovered a new trend in the migration of unauthorized people into the United States: while the total numbers of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border have grown exponentially in the past few years, human rights violations against migrant women have also increased significantly. This unfortunate trend is not unrelated to the intensifying border militarization and the criminalization of all unauthorized migrants. This paper attempts to provide an ethical solution to the political conundrum of undocumented migration by engaging a critical discourse with major feminist theorists of justice, including Seyla Benhabib, Martha Nussbaum, Iris Marion Young, and Onora O'Neill. I develop an argument in the paper that the US government's political appropriation of forgiveness is the most justifiable and practical solution for resolving the precarious situation of undocumented migrant women and children.     

Probing the history of social psychology,exploring diversity and views of the social: Publication trends in the European Journal of Social Psychology from 1971 to 2016

The European Journal of Social Psychology (EJSP), as the voice of the European Association of Social Psychology, aims to promote diversity and a distinctively ‘European’, more ‘social’, social psychology (SP). However, whether and how these objectives have been accomplished over time remains controversial. This article enters this debate, tracing the history of SP as depicted by EJSP publications, via two types of lexicometric analyses of all abstracts of the Journal (1971–2016). Themes, processes, methods, and their organisation in cycles and clusters over time, were identified and analysed. Regarding diversity, findings indicate that the publications reflect several of the new theoretical proposals that emerged over the years, but do not fully reflect the variety of perspectives and methods of the discipline. It further indicates that lately the ‘social’ is predominantly present in attention to pressing social issues, albeit the processes involved in them are mostly theorised at an individualistic level. This pattern suggests the importance of keeping open the quest for epistemological and methodological diversity, and of re-problematising what the ‘social’ in SP means. By contributing to mapping the history of SP, offering a more comprehensive and reflexive view for it, the present analyses also help in forging a stronger discipline.     

Coding responses and the generalization of matching to sample in children.

Two experiments studied the conditions of stimulus control necessary for the generalization of relational matching to sample. Matching required the selection of comparison shapes rotated 90 degrees clockwise from the orientation of the corresponding sample. In Experiment 1, five children were taught to: (a) code the orientations of samples, (b) transform sample codings to account for the 90 degree rotation, and (c) repeat the transformed sample coding response to a comparison. High levels of generalization occurred with a set of novel stimuli for which stable sample-coding responses were initially available. In another novel set, where stable sample-coding responses were not initially available, low levels of generalized matching were recorded. Matching performance improved after stable coding responses were trained. In Experiment 2, two children and three adults were trained in a form of the matching task that produced poor generalization despite the presence of stable sample-coding responses. Retraining to modify the stimulus control exerted by these coding responses produced an immediate improvement in generalized matching to sample. Results suggest that the generalization of matching is dependent on structure of stimulus control that the component responses exert on each other.     

Of snakes and faces: An evolutionary perspective on the psychology of fear

Snakes and faces are unique stimuli because they are deeply grounded in evolutionarily shaped behavior systems. Snakes are the prototypical stimulus in a predatory defense system promoting escape from predators, which prepares primates for efficient processing, attentional priority, and rapid fear acquisition to snakes and other stimuli related to predation. The social submissiveness system plays a similar role on the social arena by promoting yielding to dominant individuals without jeopardizing the protection of the group. Supporting these theoretical propositions, empirical data from a research program spanning four decades demonstrate enhanced fear conditioning to snakes and threatening faces compared to neutral stimuli, as well as fast nonconscious processing of, and prioritized attention to, snakes and threatening faces. Human brain‐imaging data show that these effects are mediated by an extensive fear‐network centering on the amygdala.     

Sensitivity to criticism and theory of mind: A cross cultural study on Japanese and Italian children

Although recent studies have shown cross-cultural differences in theory of mind (ToM) between children in Western and Eastern cultures, little is known about cross-cultural differences pertaining to social correlates. The present research investigated cultural variations in the relationship between sensitivity to criticism and ToM. Japanese (n = 76) and Italian (n = 76) 6-year-olds completed a sensitivity-to-criticism task (either the teacher condition or the peer condition), second-order false-belief tasks, and a verbal ability test. The results replicated previous findings of an association between ability rating after teacher criticism and ToM in both countries. Cultural variation was found in emotional response and motivation after teacher, but nor peer, criticism. Japanese children responded to teacher criticism more positively than did Italian children. Moreover, Japanese children who failed the second-order false-belief task were more motivated after teacher criticism than were Italian children. These results are discussed in relation to differences in cultural factors.     

Impacts of exposure to television and types of animations on children’s task persistence

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of the duration of children’s exposure to television, the level of parental guidance during the exposure and the types of animations (realistic or unrealistic) on their task persistence. A total of ninety young children with a mean age of 60.1 months (SD = 5.89) participated in the study. The time the children spent on unsolvable puzzles was recorded as an indicator of task persistence. The children were randomly assigned to either a realistic animation group or an unrealistic animation group. Initially, the children were tested with an unsolvable puzzle as a pretest. They were given a posttest two weeks later. During the test, the realistic animation group watched a realistic animation and the unrealistic animation group watched an unrealistic animation before they were asked to work on another unsolvable puzzle. The same procedure was repeated with a follow-up test two weeks later. In the pretest, no significant difference among the independent variables emerged between the groups. Multiple regression between the posttest and the follow-up test pointed out children’s daily exposure to television as a predictor of a decrease in their task persistence. The finding places more emphasis on the duration of children’s exposure to television than parental guidance and the types of television programs.     

The internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity among 8- to 11-year-old students in Wales

ABSTRACT

The Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity was designed in the mid-1970s to assess individual differences in attitude through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood from the age of 8?years upwards. This study examines the internal consistency reliability, factor structure, and construct validity of the instrument 40?years later among 1511 year 4 students (8–9 years), 1544 year 5 students (9–10 years), and 1526 year 6 students (10–11 years) in Wales attending Church in Wales voluntary aided and voluntary controlled primary schools. The data support the internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the instrument among the age range and commend the instrument for continued use in research.     

Role and justice considerations in the attribution of responsibility to a rape victim

This study was designed to assess the extent to which social role and “just world” considerations would affect perceptions and attributions of responsibility to a rape victim. The rape victim was either a topless-bottomless dancer, a social worker, or a Catholic nun, and she was either acquainted or unacquainted with her assailant. In the acquainted condition, the dancer was attributed the greatest and the nun the least amount of responsibility, indicating that social role factors can govern the range of attributional judgments which might be made in any given instance. However, unacquainted victims were ascribed more responsibility for the rape than were acquainted victims, a difference which was significant when the victim was the nun. The latter findings are discussed in terms of Lerner's just world hypothesis. Significant sex differences were found in subjects' perceptions of and responses to the rape incident and, contrary to earlier findings, no relationship was found between victim attractiveness and punitiveness toward the wrongdoer.     

An ecological study of the reliability of clinical judgment in executive appraisal

This research was a study of the reliability of clinical judgment findings (multitrait) across three different information sources (psychometric tests, structured interview, and psychometric tests and interview). Subjects (N = 74) were middle and senior executives of Western Canadian technical companies; clinicians (N = 3) were trained and experienced industrial psychologists. The study investigated the similarity of clinical evaluation of personological characteristics (based on an 18-factor multitrait paradigm) across the three different information sources. Subjects were independently rated by a single clinician on 18 criterion factors in each of the three information source categories. Test information source categories required the administration of approximately 12 hrs of standardized psychological assessment questionnaires to each of the 74 subjects. Interview source category involved a 1.5-hr structured interview per subject. Combined condition pooled both test and interview conditions. Generalizability of the findings was maximized by the undertaking of the experiment in a natural situation thus increasing ecological validity. Statistical treatments used were designed to assess the similarity of a clinician's evaluation of a subject based on the different category of information available about that client. Convergence (intrarater reliability) indexes range from a high of .64 to a low of .05. Results indicate a varying degree of convergence of multitrait clinical ratings dependent on clinician and trait being rated. Results are discussed in terms of implications for practitioners involved in executive personnel selection.