Effects of Victim and Defendant Race on Jurors' Decisions in Child Sexual Abuse Cases1

We examined the influence of victim and defendant race, victim age, juror gender, and juror prejudice on jurors' decisions in child sexual abuse cases. In Experiments 1 and 2, mock jurors judged Black and Hispanic child victims to be more responsible for their sexual abuse than White victims. In Experiment 2, jurors assigned more guilt to defendants in cases involving victims and perpetrators of the same race compared to different races. Experiment 3 illustrated that laypeople believe same‐race cases to be more plausible generally. Experiment 2 revealed that high‐prejudiced White mock jurors made no more racially biased judgments than low‐prejudiced mock jurors. Finally, women were generally more pro‐victim in their case judgments than were men, and older victims were disadvantaged compared to younger victims in terms of perceived credibility and responsibility, and their cases were less likely to draw convictions.     

Paternalistic leadership and subordinate responses: Establishing a leadership model in Chinese organizations

Paternalistic leadership (PL) is the prevalent leadership style in Chinese business organizations. With an approach similar to patriarchy, PL entails an evident and powerful authority that shows consideration for subordinates with moral leadership. Although PL is widespread in Chinese business organizations, very few studies have focused on this leadership style and those that have were simply conceptual analyses and not empirical studies. We sampled 543 subordinates from local businesses in Taiwan to investigate PL, Western transformational leadership, and subordinate responses to these two leadership styles. Our hypotheses were as follows: (1) PL has a significant and unique effect on subordinate responses compared to Western transformational leadership; (2) there exists an interaction between the three elements of PL (benevolence, morality, and authoritarianism) and subordinate responses; and (3) the authority orientation of a subordinate's traditionality has a moderating effect upon the relation between PL and subordinate responses. Statistical analyses generally supported these hypotheses. Directions for follow-up studies are offered and implications for leadership theory and practice are discussed.     

The psychology behind the masks: Psychological responses to the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in different regions

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was first reported in China, and spread to 29 regions, affecting over 8000 people worldwide. For the general public, the psychological impact of SARS may have been greater than the physical health danger of the disease. The present paper proposes the influence of psychological factors on people's cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses during the SARS outbreak. The various papers in this special issue of the Journal reveal how people have reacted during the SARS outbreak: People's general coping styles may be related to their health behavior during the outbreak. Cultural differences were evident in the perception of SARS, and individuals' perceptual styles may have influenced their ability to cope with the outbreak. The way in which individuals coped with SARS-related stressful events was different from their usual practices of managing daily stress. Individual differences in the adoption of preventive measures were related to the distinct susceptibility to several social-cognitive biases.     

Perceived Parental Rearing Style, Self-Esteem and Self-Criticism as Predictors of Happiness

This study set out to determine to what extent three recalled parental (care, discouragement of behavioural freedom, denial of psychological autonomy), self-esteem, and self-criticism predicted self-rated happiness in a normal, non-clinical, population of young people in their late teens and early 20s. Three hundred and sixty-five participants completed four questionnaires: Parental Bonding Instrument (Parker, Tupling and Brown: 1979, British Journal of Medical Psychology 55, pp. 1–10), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg: 1965, Society and the Adolescent Self-Image (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ)), Self-Criticism Questionnaire (Brewin, Firth-Cozens, Furnham and McManus: 1992, Journal of Abnormal Psychology 101, pp. 561–566), and the Oxford Happiness Inventory (Argyle, Martin and Crossland: 1989, Recent Advances in Social Psychology: An International Perspective (Elsevier, North Holland)). Regressions showed self-esteem (the positive five items) to be the most dominant and powerful correlate of happiness. Maternal care was a significant correlate of both self-esteem and self-criticism. Maternal care was the only direct correlate of happiness when paternal and maternal rearing styles were examined together suggesting that the warmth showed by mothers towards their children was particularly beneficial in increasing the offsprings' scores on self-reported happiness. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Appraisal of Sociopolitical Change Among South African Youth: The Relation to Psychological Maladjustment1

The study aimed to assess the emotional effects of appraisals of the South African sociopolitical transition among adolescents. The central hypothesis predicted a direct relation between negativity of appraisals and psychological maladjustment indexes. Participants were 540 adolescents (Black and White), relatively evenly divided by race, gender, and school grade level. Appraisals were quantifiably measured using the Sociopolitical Change Scale (SCS), which was developed for the study; and maladjustment indexes were measured using the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI; Derogatis & Spencer, 1982). The hypothesis was confirmed for the Impact of Change factor of the SCS and was partially confirmed for the Evaluation factor. These findings suggest a direct relation between negative appraisals of the transition and psychological maladjustment. Interactions with the race variable indicate residual emotional effects, particularly among Black youth. Methodological, clinical, and political implications of these findings are explored.     

Self‐Interests and Beliefs: Predictors of Mothers’ Views of Child Care1

Mothers (N= 270) completed questions related to child care for their children who were between 2 and 6 years of age. They completed a 9‐page questionnaire that included scales used to assess their attachment to their careers, financial need to work, and gender‐role beliefs as predictors of their ratings of the effects of child care on 4 criterion measures. Findings supported the hypothesized model that a mother's needs and her self‐interests and beliefs would influence her ratings of the benefits and costs of child care, her anxiety in leaving her child in child care, and her views of the effects of child care on her child. It is suggested that future research should avoid biases that might arise from participant or observer self‐interest and seek more objective approaches to the examination of the impact of child care on children.     

Can we still be friends? Resources and barriers to friendship quality after romantic relationship dissolution

Using a social exchange framework, this study examined the influence of resources, satisfaction with resources, and barriers on friendship quality between former dating partners. Three hundred and eighty‐six college students were surveyed regarding their current relationship with their most recent former romantic partner. Results indicated that participants who received more resources reported higher levels of friendship quality with their former partner. Satisfaction with resources moderated the relationship between receipt of resources and friendship quality. Lack of family or friends’ support, involvement in a new romantic relationship, and the use of neglect as a disengagement strategy were all found to be barriers to friendship quality.     

Applications of ERP and fMRI techniques to developmental science

Event‐related potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging are both measures of functional brain activation that have been applied to developmental questions. However, the two measures are not identical and reflect different aspects of neuronal function at a physiological level. There is increasing interest in using these methods in combination because of the complementary information they provide about brain activation. ERPs provide more detailed information about the timing of neural activity, while fMRI provides more detailed information about its spatial location. Thus, their combined use may provide more detailed spatio‐temporal information than either method alone. In this paper, we review the basic principles of ERP and fMRI and present selected studies from our own work to illustrate their strengths for studies of development. In addition, we discuss the potential benefits and special challenges of the combined use of electrophysiological and functional MRI techniques.     

Electrifying diagrams for learning: principles for complex representational systems

Six characteristics of effective representational systems for conceptual learning in complex domains have been identified. Such representations should: (1) integrate levels of abstraction; (2) combine globally homogeneous with locally heterogeneous representation of concepts; (3) integrate alternative perspectives of the domain; (4) support malleable manipulation of expressions; (5) possess compact procedures; and (6) have uniform procedures. The characteristics were discovered by analysing and evaluating a novel diagrammatic representation that has been invented to support students' comprehension of electricity—AVOW diagrams (Amps, Volts, Ohms, Watts). A task analysis is presented that demonstrates that problem solving using a conventional algebraic approach demands more effort than AVOW diagrams. In an experiment comparing two groups of learners using the alternative approaches, the group using AVOW diagrams learned more than the group using equations and were better able to solve complex transfer problems and questions involving multiple constraints. Analysis of verbal protocols and work scratchings showed that the AVOW diagram group, in contrast to the equations group, acquired a coherently organised network of concepts, learnt effective problem solving procedures, and experienced more positive learning events. The six principles of effective representations were proposed on the basis of these findings. AVOW diagrams are Law Encoding Diagrams, a general class of representations that have been shown to support learning in other scientific domains.     

Reasons for Reason-giving in a Public-Opinion Survey

This paper explores why respondents to a telephone public-opinion survey often give reasons for answering as they do, even though reason-giving is neither required nor encouraged and it is difficult to see the reasons as attempts to deal with disagreement. We find that respondents give reasons for the policy claims they make in their answers three times as frequently as they give reasons for value or factual claims, that their reasons tend to involve appeals to personal experience, and that they often talk about their thought processes, especially when the evidentiary stakes are high. We then explore several ways of explaining these findings. We suggest that one useful approach is to see the reason-giving in the survey interviews as deliberative, reflexive argumentation of the sort described as `critical thinking. We further suggest that the reason such argumentation is often conducted out loud in the interviews, rather than internally, is that it functions in the service of rhetorical ethos, in particular the need to display the fact that one is human, with human autonomy and agency. Doing this may be particularly important in contexts such as anonymous survey interviews in which people are at risk of being treated like machines.