On Muddled Reasoning and Mediation Modeling

The hope of mediation modeling is that psychologists can go beyond tests of association to truly uncover mechanisms of change. We argue this hope can be realized only if psychologists make important distinctions regarding causality and inference. From the perspective of Aristotelian philosophy, mediation models are sequences of efficient causes, and psychologists should therefore seek to identify those persons who can be traced through the entire sequence successfully. By reanalyzing data from two mediation studies we demonstrate that contemporary, aggregate methods of analysis are not suitable for this task because they are instead focused on making inferences about population parameters. In both studies alternative, person-centered methods revealed that majorities of participants were not traceable through the statistically significant mediation models.     

Temperature,City Size,and the Southern Subculture of Violence: Support for Social Escape/Avoidance (SEA) Theory1

A review of timc-period research on temperature and aggression led the authors to hypothesize that southern subculture and sociodemographic variables are responsible for geographical differences in I1.S. homicide rates. It was also hypothesized that temperature's correlation with nonhomicidal violencc would be stronger in small than large cities. These hypotheses were tested by obtaining cross-sectional data on I0 temperature indexes, 11 sociodemographic controls, percentage southern horn, and crime rates in more than 300 U.S. cities in 1990. Partial correlation analyses indicated that percentage southern born and sociodernographic variables rather than temperature predicted homicide rates. Moderator variable regression analyses indicated that relationships between temperature and nonhomicidal violence were stronger in small than large cities. The results are interpreted in terms of a social escapeiavoidance model of criminal behavior, which predicts that low as well as high temperatures lead co-offenders to avoid social contact.     

A Pilot Evaluation of Portfolios for Quality Attestation of Clinical Ethics Consultants

Although clinical ethics consultation is a high-stakes endeavor with an increasing prominence in health care systems, progress in developing standards for quality is challenging. In this article, we describe the results of a pilot project utilizing portfolios as an evaluation tool. We found that this approach is feasible and resulted in a reasonably wide distribution of scores among the 23 submitted portfolios that we evaluated. We discuss limitations and implications of these results, and suggest that this is a significant step on the pathway to an eventual certification process for clinical ethics consultants.     

Reducing White Juror Bias: The Role of Race Salience and Racial Attitudes1

Both Black and White jurors exhibit a racial bias by being more likely to find defendants of a different race guilty than defendants who are of the same race. Sommers & Ellsworth (2000, 2001 ) found that salient racial issues in a trial reduced White juror racial bias toward a Black defendant. We examined if race salience could reduce White juror racial bias, even for individuals who reported high levels of racism. Making race salient reduced White juror racial bias toward a Black defendant. Jurors' racist beliefs were only associated with the verdict when the defendant's race was not made salient. This finding suggests that the effects of individual prejudice toward a Black defendant can be reduced by making the defendant's race salient.     

In the Eye of the Beholder: Do Behavior and Character Affect Victim and Perpetrator Responsibility for Acquaintance Rape?1

Acquaintance rape attributions of responsibility were investigated. In Study 1, participants viewed videotapes that varied the female victim's resistance (verbal, physical, verbal/physical) and the reaction of the perpetrator (anger, no reaction) or a control videotape. The victim was held less responsible and the perpetrator was held more responsible when the victim resisted. In Study 2, participants viewed videotapes that manipulated victim and perpetrator reputation. Victims were held more responsible when they had a bad reputation; perpetrators were held more responsible when the victim had a good reputation or the perpetrator had a bad reputation. Hostile sexism predicted victim responsibility in both studies; rape myth predicted victim and perpetrator responsibility in Study 2. Implications for the legal system are discussed.     

The curve is still out there: a reply to Bushman, Wang, and Anderson's (2005) "Is the curve relating temperature to aggression linear or curvilinear?"

This article replies to research conducted by B. J. Bushman, M. C. Wang, and C. A. Anderson and demonstrates that the results of prior research by E. G. Cohn and J. Rotton do support the existence of a curvilinear relationship between temperature and aggression when time of day is taken into consideration. The shape of the relationship between temperature and aggression also depends on a number of other factors, including season, amount of social interaction, type of violence, and type of setting. It appears that linear relationships between temperature and aggression identified by B. J. Bushman et al. are less ubiquitous than might be believed and that the curve is still out there.     

Book reviews

New Religious Movements in the United States and Canada. A Critical Assessment and Annotated Bibliography Compiled by Diane Choquette Greenwood Press, London, 1985 £39.95 pp.235

Knowledge, Belief and Witchcraft: Analytic Experiments in African Philosophy. B. Hallen and J.O. Spdipo. Ethnographica, London, 1986. Pp 1–38

Sectes Nouvelles. Un regard neuf.. Jean‐Francois Mayer. Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1985. ISBN 2–204–02458–9. 130 pp.

Restoring die Kingdom: The Radical Christianity of the House Church Movement. Andrew Walker Hodder and Stoughton, London, Sydney, Aukland, Toronto, 1985 298 pages (P/B) £5.95

Bhagwan: The God that failed . Hugh Milne. London: Caliban Books. ISBN 1 85066 0069. £12, 316pp.

Is There a New Imbalance in the Jewish‐Christian Relation?. Antonio Barboso da Silva Uppsala University, Uppsala 1985. 220 pages

Sociological Theory, Religion and Collective Action. Roy Wallis and Steve Bruce The Queen's University Press, Belfast, 1986 i‐xi, 395 pp. Hdbk.

The Way of the Heart: The Rajneesh Movement. Judith Thompson & Paul Heelas Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, pp. 142, £5.99     

Wallpaper illusion: cause of disorientation and falls on escalators

The wallpaper illusion, first described over a century ago, can occur when a person with normal binocular vision views a pattern that is periodic in the horizontal meridian of the visual field. Escalator trends present such a pattern. Evidence is presented favoring the view that disorientation experienced by escalator riders is caused by this illusion. Possibly some of the estimated 60,000 escalator falls occurring in the United States each year are linked to it.     

Speed of information processing in academically gifted youths

A group of bright-average 7th grade junior-high-school students was contrasted with a group of manifestly academically gifted students of comparable age who were taking college-level courses in mathematics and science. The groups differed significantly and markedly (showing an overall mean difference of 1.34 SD) on every one of the nine different reaction-time (RT) tasks measuring the speed with which persons perform various elementary cognitive processes. The results indicate that: (1) various RT measurements discriminate about as much between intellectually average and superior groups as past studies have found RT measurements to discriminate between average and subnormal groups: and (2) the academically gifted differ from their nongifted age-peers in more than just scholastic knowledge and advanced problem-solving skills—they differ fundamentally in speed of information processing on extremely simple cognitive tasks with average response latencies of between 0.3 and 1.5 sec.