In the public interest: intellectual disability, the Supreme Court, and the death penalty

This article deals with a case that recently came before the U.S. Supreme Court. The issues involved whether attorneys provided effective assistance to a person convicted of murder when no mitigating evidence was presented (either strategically or by neglect) to the jury concerning the intellectual disabilities of their client during the death penalty phase of the trial. The Supreme Court had previously ruled that the death penalty for intellectually disabled individuals (mentally retarded) constituted cruel and unusual punishment. In this case the attorneys made a strategic decision not to present possibly mitigating evidence for the death penalty phase. The Supreme Court considered whether the appeals court abdicated its judicial review responsibilities. The results of psychological evaluations are presented, and the decisions of the Supreme Court are discussed.     

Threat and authoritarianism in the United States, 1978-1987

Studies at both the individual and collective levels have implicated threat as an important factor in authoritarianism. As a follow-up to Sales's (1973) study relating behavioral indicators of authoritarianism to levels of social threat, the present research analyzed archival data from the United States for high-threat (1978-1982) and low-threat (1983-1987) periods. Societal measures of most attitude and behavioral components of the authoritarian syndrome significantly decreased between the high-threat and the low-threat periods. These results support the threat-authoritarianism relationship but also suggest a more complicated theoretical model that links perceived social conditions, arousal of authoritarian sentiments, dispositional authoritarianism, and the nature of political appeals--particularly those that engage authoritarian aggression.     

Implications of financial concerns for college goal commitment among undergraduate students in the United States

Financial stress and student loan debt are on the rise among today’s college students. This study examined the associations between financial factors and students’ college goal commitment. A multi-institutional survey was used to assess students’ financial stress, estimated student loan debt, and the perceived importance of career, economic, academic, and co-curricular college goals. Logistic regression analyses found that, after controlling for demographic and academic factors, students with significant financial stress and high levels of debt were more likely to prioritize career, economic, and academic goals for college. Significant interactions between students’ demographic characteristics and their financial concerns were also found.

     

Empirical support for the United States Supreme Court's protection of the psychotherapist-patient privilege

This study explored relations between willingness to disclose in 5 psychotherapy scenarios and 2 independent variables (privilege condition and previous therapy experience). Scenarios involved suicidal, gravely disabled, physically abusive, and sexually abusive patients, and a police officer patient who shot a suspect. For each of the 5 scenarios, participants in the privilege condition had significantly higher willingness-to-disclose scores than participants in the non-privilege condition. There were no significant differences between willingness-to-disclose scores of participants with and without therapy experience; neither was there a significant interaction between privilege condition and therapy experience. Privilege condition was more predictive of willingness to disclose than personal characteristics or therapy experience. Results provide empirical support for the U.S. Supreme Court's recognition of the psychotherapist-patient privilege in Jaffee v. Redmond (1996).     

Intelligence and fertility in the United States: 1912-1982

Results are presented for the 1st analysis of the relationship between IQ and completed fertility using a large, representative sample of the US population. Correlations are predominantly negative for cohorts born between 1894 and 1964 but are significantly more positive for cohorts whose fertility was concentrated in the baby boom years. Previous studies reporting slightly positive correlations appear to have been biased in their restriction of samples to atypical cohorts. The National Opinion Research Center (NORC), a nonprofit research organization affiliated with the University of Chicago, conducted the General Social Survey (GSS) in the US each year from 1972 to 1982, except for 1979. A combination of block quota and full probability sampling was employed. Hour-long interviews were completed with 12,120 respondents who were English-speaking, noninstitutionalized adults (18 years or older) living within the continental US. Such questions as age, place of birth, income and occupation, were asked in each interview. Other questions about attitudes on various social, political, and moral issues were rotated in different years. The unique opportunity this data set affords is an overview of the relationship between intelligence and fertility for a nationally representative sample of Americans whose major reproductive years fell between 1912 and 1982. Data were consolidated from the 4 surveys in which the vocabulary test was given (1974, 1976, 1978, and 1982). Respondents were divided into 15 birth cohorts of 5-year intervals ranging from before 1894 to 1964. Correlations between vocabulary scores and number of siblings are markedly negative across all 15 cohorts. Vocabulary sibling correlations are more negative in every cohort than vocabulary offspring correlations. Previous reports of a neutral or slightly eugenic relationship appear to be due to the nature of the samples used, in part because the cohorts chosen were atypical, and in part because they did not include nonwhites. Childless respondents averaged slightly higher scores than did those with 1 or more children, indicating that the automatic exclusion of the childless from sibling-IQ studies has not spuriously inflated negative correlations.     

Threat and Television Viewing in the United States, 1960-1990

We examined people's television viewing choices to determine whether, during times of societal threat, people watch light programming to escape from self, or meaningful programming to explore their fears. Consistent with previous research (Doty, Peterson, & Winter, 1991; Sales, 1973), societal threat was defined as increases in unemployment, consumer price index, prime interest rate, bombings, crime, work stoppages, suicide, homicide, and divorce. The 20 highest rated television programs for each year from 1960 to 1990 were rated in terms of meaningfulness of content, realism of characters, and complexity of plot and compared to the indicators of societal threat. Results indicate that during times of societal threat people choose meaningful television programming that confronts serious issues.     

Rate, relative risk, and method of suicide by students at 4-year colleges and universities in the United States, 2004-2005 through 2008-2009

A total of 622 suicides were reported among students attending 645 distinct campuses from 2004-2005 through 2008-2009. Adjusting for gender in the population at risk of 14.9 million student-years and for the source of these data, the student suicide rate of 7.0 was significantly and substantially lower than for a matched national sample. Suicide rates by firearm were significantly and substantially lower for both female and male students. Hanging was significantly and substantially lower for male students, less prominently so for female students. It is principally the ninefold decrease in the availability of firearms on campuses (vs. homes) and secondarily other features of the campus environment that are the bases for lower student suicide rates.     

Blockheads, roundheads, pointy heads: intellectual disability and the brain before modern medicine

Recent work on the conceptual history of intellectual disability has pointed to a discontinuity in the seventeenth century, identifying the concept as essentially modern in a more radical sense than mental illness or physical disability. However, Galenist accounts of intellectual impairment were clearly connected (via anatomy) to neurology, which could be taken as prima facie evidence that Galenism shares with modern medicine one of its basic explanatory approaches to intellectual disability. Close textual examination does not bear out this counter-claim, at least as far as the conceptual apparatus itself is concerned. However, it does reveal a degree of continuity in the medical mind-set as discourses of monstrosity were transposed from the domain of anatomy to that of post-Cartesian psychology.     

The relationship between trauma and financial and physical well-being among Cambodians in the United States.

This study focused on the relationship between trauma and financial and physical well-being of Cambodian refugees in the United States. Trauma was defined by three variables: whether or not trauma had been experienced in Cambodia, the number of traumas experienced, and the number of years spent in refugee camps. It was hypothesized that these trauma variables would predict financial and physical health among Cambodians in the United States. A discriminant analysis showed significant relationships between the trauma variables and current employment status, and multiple regression analyses showed that trauma predicted income and physical health.     

Presumed consent for organ preservation in uncontrolled donation after cardiac death in the United States: a public policy with serious consequences

Organ donation after cessation of circulation and respiration, both controlled and uncontrolled, has been proposed by the Institute of Medicine as a way to increase opportunities for organ procurement. Despite claims to the contrary, both forms of controlled and uncontrolled donation after cardiac death raise significant ethical and legal issues. Identified causes for concern include absence of agreement on criteria for the declaration of death, nonexistence of universal guidelines for duration before stopping resuscitation efforts and techniques, and assumption of presumed intent to donate for the purpose of initiating temporary organ-preservation interventions when no expressed consent to donate is present. From a legal point of view, not having scientifically valid criteria of cessation of circulation and respiration for declaring death could lead to a conclusion that organ procurement itself is the proximate cause of death. Although the revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act of 2006 provides broad immunity to those involved in organ-procurement activities, courts have yet to provide an opinion on whether persons can be held liable for injuries arising from the determination of death itself. Preserving organs in uncontrolled donation after cardiac death requires the administration of life-support systems such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. These life-support systems can lead to return of signs of life that, in turn, have to be deliberately suppressed by the administration of pharmacological agents. Finally, allowing temporary organ-preservation interventions without expressed consent is inherently a violation of the principle of respect for a person's autonomy. Proponents of organ donation from uncontrolled donation after cardiac death, on the other hand, claim that these nonconsensual interventions enhance respect for autonomy by allowing people, through surrogate decision making, to execute their right to donate organs. However, the lack of transparency and the absence of protection of individual autonomy, for the sake of maximizing procurement opportunities, have placed the current organ-donation system of opting-in in great jeopardy. Equally as important, current policies enabling and enhancing organ procurement practices, pose challenges to the constitutional rights of individuals in a pluralistic society as these policies are founded on flawed medical standards for declaring death.     

Perfectionism in Argentina and the United States: Measurement Structure,Invariance, and Implications for Depression

The Revised Almost Perfect Scale (APS–R; Slaney, Mobley, Trippi, Ashby, &; Johnson, 1996 Slaney, R. B., Mobley, M., Trippi, J., Ashby, J. S., &; Johnson, D. (1996). Almost Perfect Scale Revised. Psyctests. doi:10.1037/t02161-000[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) was designed to measure perfectionistic strivings (standards), perfectionistic concerns (discrepancy), and preferences for neatness and organization (order). In this study, English and Spanish (Arana, Keegan, &; Rutsztein, 2009 Arana, F. G., Keegan, E. G., &; Rutsztein, G. (2009). Adaptación de una medida multidimensional de perfeccionismo: la Almost Perfect Scale–Revised (APS–R). Un estudio preliminar sobre sus propiedades psicométricas en una muestra de estudiantes universitarios argentinos [Adaptation of a measure of multidimensional perfectionism: The Almost Perfect Scale–Revised. A preliminary study about its psychometrical properties on a sample of Argentine university students]. Evaluar, 9, 35–53. [Google Scholar]) versions of the APS–R were compared in samples of 283 college students in Argentina and 311 U.S. students. The results offered support for cross-national scalar invariance for discrepancy and order items but standards items, with a few exceptions, raised concerns about their cross-national comparability. Tests of latent means revealed no differences between the countries for discrepancy, but the order factor mean was higher in the U.S. sample. Age and gender had negligible effects on measurement models. Discrepancy was strongly related to depressive symptoms for both samples. Unlike in the U.S. sample, there was a significant association for the Argentina sample between standards and discrepancy. Overall, results indicated that discrepancy items performed well, order items were adequate with some measurement adjustments, and standards items should be revisited for their cross-cultural utility. Translation issues and general values in Argentina and the United States (e.g., collectivism–individualism) are discussed that might affect how perfectionism is understood and measured in different cultural contexts.     

The next exclusion debate: assessing technology, ethics, and intellectual disability after the Human Genome Project

Recent scientific discoveries have made it much easier to test prenatally for various genetic disabilities, such as Down syndrome. However, while many observers have heralded such "advances" for their effectiveness in detecting certain conditions, others have argued that they perpetuate discrimination by preventing the birth of children with disabilities. This article examines the ethical and social implications of the Human Genome Project for individuals with intellectual disabilities and their families. It details the critique of prenatal testing articulated by many disability rights activists as well as scholarly and professional responses to that critique. A review of the pertinent research literature includes perspectives of genetic professionals, ethicists, disability studies scholars, parents of children with disabilities, and disabled individuals themselves. Finally, the article explores how future research endeavors, policies, and practices may more effectively integrate and respect the positions of these various stakeholders.     

Resources, Races, and Female-Headed Congregations in the United States

This paper uses the 1998 National Congregations Study (NCS) to investigate the demographic and organizational characteristics of female-headed congregations in the United States. Our findings significantly extend knowledge about the demographic characteristics of these congregations. Counterintuitively, female-led congregations are more likely to be found inurban areas than in other locations, and they are more prevalent among African American congregations—particularly those with no denominational ties—and among ethnically mixed congregations. Our findings also confirm previous research on women clergy which indicates that, compared with congregations led by men, there is a paucity of organizational resources in female-headed congregations.     

Assessment Centers: Current Practices in the United States

Purpose  

The goals of this investigation were to review current AC practices in the United States by evaluating whether they follow the Guidelines and Ethical Considerations for Assessment Center Operations (International Task Force on Assessment Centers, 2000). We both expanded upon and compared our results to a prior benchmarking study (Spychalski et al. in Personnel Psychol, 50:71–90, 1997), and investigated practices regarding job analysis, AC development, dimensions (i.e., job requirements), exercises, assessor characteristics and training, behavior recording, data integration, organizational policy, assessee rights, AC evaluation and AC technology. Data were collected via an online survey completed by individuals from human resource departments of organizations (N = 54) across the U.S; organizations to whom the survey was sent were selected by sampling Fortune 500 organizations based on economic sector.     

人口统计、身份和空间:定义美国穆斯林

本文以2001年以来,以美国乔治敦大学穆斯林-基督徒理解中心为基地的《美国公共领域中的穆斯林》项目展开的美国穆斯林民意调查为基础,从人口统计、宗教实践、对社会和政治事务领域各种行为的看法,以及9·11事件及其后果等方面,对美国穆斯林社团的现状和未来可能的发展道路进行了分析。