The Role of Death Qualification in Venirepersons' Attitudes Toward the Insanity Defense1

Three hundred venirepersons from the 12^th Judicial Circuit in Florida completed a booklet of stimulus materials that contained the following: one question that specified participants' level of support for the death penalty; one Witt death‐qualification question; a case scenario that included a summary of the guilt and penalty phases of a capital case; verdict and sentencing preferences; a 16‐item measure that required participants to rate their receptiveness to the insanity defense on a 6‐point Likert scale; and standard demographic questions. Results indicated that death‐qualified venirepersons, when compared to excludables, were more likely to endorse certain insanity myths, find the defendant guilty, and sentence the defendant to death. Legal implications are discussed.     

Political Ideology and Attitudes Toward Censorship1

A modified form of the Attitudes Toward Censorship Questionnaire (Hense & Wright, 1992) was developed to assess the degree to which that scale measures attitudes toward censorship in general as opposed to censorship of material representing particular sociopolitical values. The revised form characterized the potentially censorable materials as racist, sexist, or violent. University student respondents who showed high acceptance of censorship in this context scored high on measures of authoritarianism, political conservatism, and conventional family ideology (as had procensorship respondents on the Hense and Wright scale), but low on a scale of economic conservatism. Women were more favorably inclined toward censorship than men. Supporters of Canada's most left-wing (social democratic) major federal party were most favorable to censorship. Factor analysis showed that most of the variance could be explained by a cluster that we have labeled “Politically Correct Puritanism”: support for censoring racist and sexist materials and depictions of sexual violence. The second major factor was related to commercial availability of such materials. Content-specific items on both the original and our modified scales may establish a context that guides the interpretation of nonspecific items, so that both the original Attitudes Toward Censorship Questionnaire and our modified version may be measuring attitudes toward censorship of materials violating a particular view of morality, rather than toward censorship in principle.     

The Development of the Attitudes Toward Censorship Questionnaire1

Two studies were conducted to develop a psychometrically sound scale to measure attitudes to ward censorship. In the first study, 37 initial items were administered to 109 college and high school students. Additional measures were also included for validation purposes. Factor analysis and item-total correlations were used to select items for the final scale. Results revealed two distinct factors alluding to the possibility of a multidimensional construct. Reliability coefficients indicated that both factors were internally consistent. Correlations with additional measures provided evidence for the criterion and convergent validity of the scale. The second study used a sample of 150 college students to replicate the initial findings and to establish testretest reliability.     

Attitudes Toward Energy Conservation: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis1

This study reports a large-scale survey of citizens' attitudes and beliefs toward energy use and conservation in the southwestern United States. A probability sample of 1,000 Texas residents responded to a 10-item telephone survey. Questions concerned issues such as thermal comfort and health, economic benefits of conservation, efficacy of individual efforts, and perceived causes of the current U.S. energy situation. Confirmatory factor analysis replicated previous work by Seligman et al. (1979) and Becker et al. (1981) by identifying the same four principal dimensions underlying energy use attitudes and beliefs: 1) comfort and health, 2) high effort-low payoff, 3) role of individual consumer, and 4) legitimacy of energy problem. In addition, several demographic characteristics were found to moderate consumers' responses to the survey items. The results of this study reinforce the conclusion that future energy conservation campaigns should be sensitive to consumers' concerns about comfort and health. New directions for future research on energy attitudes and conservation behavior are discussed.     

Neuroscience, Ethics and Legal Responsibility: The Problem of the Insanity Defense

The insanity defense presents many difficult questions for the legal system. It attracts attention beyond its practical significance (it is seldom used successfully) because it goes to the heart of the concept of legal responsibility. ??Not guilty by reason of insanity?? generally requires that as a result of mental illness the defendant was unable to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the crime. The many difficult and complex questions presented by the insanity defense have led some in the legal community to hope that neuroscience might help resolve some of these problems, but that hope is not likely to be realized.     

Attitudes Toward Male Oral Contraceptives: Implications for Models of the Relationship Between Beliefs and Attitudes1

Four factors (effectiveness, health risks, cost, and convenience) were orthogonally manipulated in a 3 × 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design to determine their relative importance in influencing attitudes toward and intentions to use male oral contraceptives. The experimental design also permitted a test of the assumption of additivity underlying expectancy-value models of attitude and the assumption of absence of context effects. Results were consistent with expectancy-value models of the relationship between beliefs and attitudes. In addition, it was found that health risks and effedtiveness, in that order, were the most important factors influencing receptivity to male oral contraceptives, with the effects of cost and convenience being mediated by these two factors. Sex differences in attitudes toward male oral contraceptives were also observed.     

The Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984: Much ado about nothing

The Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984(IDRA), passed in the wake of Hinckley (1981) and after two years of Senate and House testimony and debate, removed the “volitional” prong of the ALI test, leaving only the “cognitive” prong. Prior empirical research and speculation suggested that this corrective would not serve its intended purpose. In this experiment, 54 mock jurors received one of four insanity test instructions: IDRA, ALI, a wild beast/mens rea test, or no instructions. Results showed that the test instructions did not produce significantly different verdict patterns, or effect in any other way the relevant and determinative constructs that jurors used in four different insanity cases.     

Attitudes Toward Different Methods of Affirmative Action1

It was found that the men's and women's attitudes toward affirmative action (AA) in general were related to differences in self-interest. In addition, consistent with predictions drawn from notions of organizational justice and attribution principles, it was found that people held different attitudes toward different methods of affirmative action. People were most favorable toward AA involving special training programs and least favorable toward AA that employed differential selection criteria for target group members. Attitudes toward quota-based systems were intermediate.     

Women's Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action: Putting Actions in Context1

Although women typically favor affirmative action, they do exhibit a range of reactions to affirmative action programs. To understand the diversity of reactions, the present study proposed an examination of various forms of affirmative action in the context of the discrimination problem such actions were designed to address. In Study 1, 60 female university students were presented with one of six scenarios describing a situation of discrimination against women, followed by a series of potential affirmative action response options which participants rated in terms of their level of endorsement. Analyses of variance showed that, despite the range of discrimination scenarios, some of which presented extreme cases of discrimination against women, respondents consistently endorsed nondiscrimination measures, and opposed affirmative action strategies involving preferential treatment. Study 2, which preselected 43 women who valued social equality, replicated this finding and found that these results were not due to women not perceiving the presence of collective discrimination. Study 3 examined the attitudes of women in a law and security police training stream (n = 19), whose vulnerability to employment discrimination, both as a group and personally, would be salient. The women in this study endorsed all forms of affirmative action, including explicit preferential treatment in the hiring of women police officers. The implications of these results for the consideration and implementation of affirmative action programs are discussed.     

Attitudes Toward People Living With HIV/AIDS: A Model of Attitudes to Illness1

This study examined attitudes toward people living with HIV/AIDS within a sample of 220 young men and women. As predicted, a multiple regression analysis revealed that the fear of contracting HIV/AIDS through casual contact was a significant predictor of both men's and women's willingness to interact with people living with HIV/AIDS. Attitudes toward homosexuality were also a significant predictor of attitudes toward people living with HIV/AIDS among women, who generally have a low risk of contracting the disease in Western societies. These results indicate that attitudes toward people with a serious illness may be strongly related to the perceived risk of contracting the disease.     

Attitudes Toward Sexual Harassment of Women in India1

A hypothetical incident of sexual harassment at the workplace was presented to 720 undergraduate students of the University of Bombay who attributed blame to the female victim of a superordinate male harasser and rated the appropriateness of her response to the harassment. The experiment had a 2 (Subject's Sex) × 3 (Victim's Marital Status: unmarried, married, or divorced) × 2 (Type of Harassment: verbal vs. physical) × 4 (Victim's Response: ignoring, complaining, scolding, or slapping) between-subjects factorial design with 15 subjects per cell. Male subjects blamed the victim of harassment more than female subjects, the unmarried and married victims were blamed more than the divorced victim, and the ignoring victim was blamed more than the complaining, scolding, and slapping victims. Perceived appropriateness of victim's response was higher with the divorced victim as compared to the unmarried and married victims, with physical harassment as compared to verbal harassment, and with the complaining, scolding, and slapping victims as compared to the ignoring victim. A three-way interaction on perceived appropriateness suggested that female subjects, as compared to male subjects, were more in favor of strong self-assertive action against harassment, but relatively less so in the case of the unmarried victim.     

Individualism and Authoritarianism Shape Attitudes Toward Physician-Assisted Suicide1

We investigated the relation between value orientations and attitudes toward physician-assisted suicide (PAS) in 267 United States college students. We predicted that individualistic values, especially those having to do with control and self-determination, would lead to favorable attitudes toward PAS, and authoritarianism would lead to a rejection of PAS. A positive association between individualism and approval of PAS emerged which was moderated by attitude importance: People who did not endorse individualistic values did not have favorable opinions of PAS, regardless of how important the issue was to them. However, for individualists, PAS attitudes and attitude importance were positively related. Independent of individualism, authoritarianism was negatively related to PAS attitudes. Primarily for low authoritarianism, we found a correlation between attitude and attitude importance. The discussion focuses on the value-expressive function of death-related attitudes.     

Attitudes Toward Prostitution and Acceptance of Rape Myths1

Rape myths and prostitution myths are a component of culturally supported attitudes that normalize violence against women. Prostitution myths justify the existence of prostitution, promote misinformation about prostitution, and contribute to a social climate that exploits and harms not only prostituted women, but all women. This study investigated the relationship between prostitution myth acceptance and rape myth acceptance in a sample of university undergraduates. Rape myth acceptance was positively correlated with prostitution myth acceptance among 783 university undergraduates from California, Iowa, Oregon, and Texas. College men were significantly more accepting of prostitution myths than were college women. Results suggest that acceptance of prostitution myths are a component of attitudes that justify violence against women.     

The Formation of Attitudes Toward New Immigrant Groups1

People often receive information about new immigrant groups prior to any direct contact with group members. However, it is not clear how this information shapes attitudes toward the groups. To explore this issue, 204 subjects were told about an unknown immigrant group that was presented as high or low in personal relevance. Subjects were then given positive or negative consensus information about the emotions that group members elicit from others, group members' personality traits, and group members' values. As expected, results indicated that the presentation of positive information about emotional reactions, personality traits, and values caused attitudes to be more favorable than did the presentation of negative information. Importantly, however, the combined impact of the emotion and personality trait information depended on whether the group was perceived to be of high or low personal relevance. Specifically, when the information about emotions and personality traits was similarly valanced (i.e., both were positive or both were negative), attitudes toward the group tended to be less favorable in the high personal relevance condition than in the low personal relevance condition. In contrast, when mixed information was presented (i.e., positive emotions and negative personality traits or negative emotions and positive personality traits), attitudes tended to be more favorable in the high personal relevance condition. In addition, attitudes, once formed, predicted further perceptions of the group and behavioral intentions toward group members. The implications of the findings for the reduction of prejudice toward new immigrant groups are discussed.     

Late Adolescents' Experiences With and Attitudes Toward Videogames1

A total of 229 late adolescents (a large majority 15 to 19 years of age) completed a questionnaire that assesses a broad range of videogame-relevant experiences, preferences, and attitudes. Videogame playing was found to be a more popular, and a more highly regarded, activity among males than females. Gender differences were also found in participants' ratings of their motivations for playing videogames, their evaluations of particular characteristics of videogames, and their selection of their “most favorite” videogame. The differences between frequent and infrequent videogame players appeared to be limited to differences in the extent to which videogame playing is pursued and evaluated as a positive leisure activity, rather than reflecting broad differences in interest or personality. Some relations were found between participants' self-reported personality characteristics (i.e., self-esteem, empathy, conscientiousness, and introversion) and their attitudes toward videogames.     

College Students' Attitudes Toward Mental Illness: An Examination of the Stigma Process1

Undergraduate students (96 female, 72 male) read 3 scenarios depicting either male or female characters with symptoms of depression, alcohol abuse, and common stress. Participants then completed measures assessing their attitudes about the character in the scenarios, as well as their level of social dominance orientation, empathy, adherence to traditional gender roles, and familiarity with mental illness. As predicted, participants who labeled the target mentally ill were more likely to view the target as dangerous. This, in turn, led to an increased desire for social distance. In contrast, empathy, although associated with increased likelihood of labeling, was associated with decreased desire for social distance. Implications of the results for reducing the social stigma of mental illness are discussed.     

Crossing the Border: Latino Attitudes Toward Immigration Policy

In the midst of the ongoing and highly polarized immigration debate, it seems that little attention has been paid to how Latinos view efforts to address the issues of undocumented immigrants residing in the United States and enhanced enforcement efforts along the U.S.–Mexico border. Consequently, questions arise as to the degree of support for or rejection of such measures within the Latino community and among the various segments of that community. Do U.S.-born Latinos, foreign-born naturalized citizens, and undocumented immigrants from various parts of Latin America have similar or divergent views on these issues? It is generally assumed that ethnicity is an important factor in influencing attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policies. Some studies have found that foreign-born Latinos have more positive attitudes toward immigration than native-born Latinos due in part to their shared immigration experience. There are, however, other studies demonstrating that Latino immigrants have often expressed support for more restrictive immigration policies. It may hold true, in fact, that many Latinos have ambiguous and conflicting attitudes about these issues. This article will try to shed some light on Latinos’ attitudes regarding specific policy measures by analyzing data from the Pew Hispanic Center National Survey of Latinos, which allows for considerable differentiation among various sectors of the Latino population.     

Blaming the Victim: University Student Attitudes Toward Bullying

Numerous studies have examined adolescent attitudes toward bullying, but limited research has explored college students’ attitudes toward victims of bullying. Using data collected from three southern universities (n = 1,135), the current research investigates demographic, experiential, and behavioral factors that are likely to influence whether university students attribute blame to bullying victims. Findings indicate that most university students report prosocial attitudes toward bullying. Victim blaming and minimizing attitudes were most common among males, heterosexuals, and those with a history of prior bullying perpetration during junior high or high school. Individuals reporting a higher frequency of drug use were significantly more likely to support victim blaming attitudes, and those who engaged in more frequent alcohol use were significantly more likely to minimize bullying.     

Effects of Contact on Children's Attitudes Toward Disability: A Longitudinal Study1

A quasi-experimental study was conducted on temporal effects of intergroup contact on nondisabled (ND) children's attitudes toward disability. Children from a mainstream primary school were involved in an integration program with children from a school for children with severe learning disabilities (SLD). ³ 3 Severe learning disabilities (SLD) is the term currently used in the U.K. to describe people who might formally have been described as having “severe mental handicap” or “severe retardation.” This term is interchangeable with “severe learning disabilities.”
Measures were administered 3 times over a period of 3 months to 26 integrating (experimental) and 24 nonintegrating (control) children. Social orientations in the experimental group became significantly more positive over time, while the control group showed little change. The experimental and control children initially categorized on the basis of gender and disability; subsequently the strategies of the experimental children were more idiosyncratic while the control children still used the same two dimensions.