The Probability of Guilt in Criminal Cases: Are People Aware of Being ‘Beyond Reasonable Doubt’?

Data from a series of studies presenting video recorded witness statements to laypersons and legal professionals were examined to trace the relationship between judged probability of guilt and the willingness to vote guilty or not guilty in hypothetical trials, in the absence of specific jury instructions. The results show that a majority of jury‐eligible young and elderly participants, and police officers, were willing to convict a defendant when the judged probability of guilt exceeded .6. This is considerably below the legally accepted standard of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, which usually is equated with a very high, around .9 perceived certainty. When jury deliberations were allowed, the threshold for conviction rose, approaching the standard evinced by trial judges under the same conditions. The results suggest that people prefer to vote for guilt according to a balance of probabilities principle, considering only the individual case, and disregarding the implied frequencies of false convictions. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Associations between violence,criminality, and cognitive control deficits among young men living in low resource communities in South Africa

Despite empirical support for “Self-control theory” in criminology, there is controversy about how self-control should be operationalized. Working within the framework of “self-control theory,” we investigated if violence and criminal behaviors are associated with nine distinct dimensions of cognitive control in a community sample of young men (n = 654) living in peri-urban townships in South Africa. Cognitive control was assessed using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function. Multivariate statistical analysis was used, to identify associations between violence and criminality, and deaggregated measures of nine distinct components of cognitive control. Fifteen percent of the sample reported recent violence, 27% had been in physical fights with family/friends in the preceding 6 months, 10% reported being arrested, 4% reported forced sexual contact, and 26% reported intimate partner violence (IPV). Controlling for substance use and sociodemographic variables, contact with the criminal justice system and violence were associated with deficits in all domains of cognitive control. Forced sexual contact was associated with behavioral dysregulation. IPV was associated with behavior dysregulation and executive control dysfunction. Future studies might utilize deaggregated measures of self-control to provide further insight into links between particular components of cognitive control and various forms of offending and violence.     

The physical postures of yoga practices may protect against depressive symptoms,even as life stressors increase: a moderation analysis

Yoga contains sub-components related to its physical postures (asana), breathing methods (pranayama), and meditation (dhyana). To test the hypothesis that specific yoga practices are associated with reduced psychological distress, 186 adults completed questionnaires assessing life stressors, symptom severity, and experience with each of these aspects of yoga. Each yoga sub-component was found to be negatively correlated with psychological distress indices. However, differing patterns of relationship to psychological distress symptoms were found for each yoga sub-component. Experience with asana was negatively correlated with global psychological distress (r = ?.21, p < .01), and symptoms of anxiety (r = ?.18, p = .01) and depression (r = ?.17, p = .02). These relationships remained statistically significant after accounting for variance attributable to Social Readjustment Rating Scale scores (GSI: r = ?.19, p = .01; BSI Anxiety: r = ?.16, p = .04; BSI Depression: r = ?.14, p = .05). By contrast, the correlations between other yoga sub-components and symptom subscales became non-significant after accounting for exposure to life stressors. Moreover, stressful life events moderated the predictive relationship between amount of asana experience and depressive symptoms. Asana was not related to depressive symptoms at low levels of life stressors, but became associated at mean (t[182] = ?2.73, p < .01) and high levels (t[182] = ?3.56, p < .001). Findings suggest asana may possess depressive symptom reduction benefits, particularly as life stressors increase. Additional research is needed to differentiate whether asana has an effect on psychological distress, and to better understand potential psychophysiological mechanisms of action.     

The language and social background questionnaire: Assessing degree of bilingualism in a diverse population

Research examining the cognitive consequences of bilingualism has expanded rapidly in recent years and has revealed effects on aspects of cognition across the lifespan. However, these effects are difficult to find in studies investigating young adults. One problem is that there is no standard definition of bilingualism or means of evaluating degree of bilingualism in individual participants, making it difficult to directly compare the results of different studies. Here, we describe an instrument developed to assess degree of bilingualism for young adults who live in diverse communities in which English is the official language. We demonstrate the reliability and validity of the instrument in analyses based on 408 participants. The relevant factors for describing degree of bilingualism are: (1) the extent of non-English language proficiency and use at home, and (2) non-English language use socially. We then use the bilingualism scores obtained from the instrument to demonstrate their association with: (1) performance on executive function tasks, and (2) previous classifications of participants into categories of monolinguals and bilinguals.     

Creation and Implementation of an Environmental Scan to Assess Cancer Genetics Services at Three Oncology Care Settings

An environmental scan (ES) is an efficient mixed-methods approach to collect and interpret relevant data for strategic planning and project design. To date, the ES has not been used nor evaluated in the clinical cancer genetics setting. We created and implemented an ES to inform the design of a quality improvement (QI) project to increase the rates of adherence to national guidelines for cancer genetic counseling and genetic testing at three unique oncology care settings (OCS). The ES collected qualitative and quantitative data from reviews of internal processes, past QI efforts, the literature, and each OCS. The ES used a data collection form and semi-structured interviews to aid in data collection. The ES was completed within 6 months, and sufficient data were captured to identify opportunities and threats to the QI project’s success, as well as potential barriers to, and facilitators of guideline-based cancer genetics services at each OCS. Previously unreported barriers were identified, including inefficient genetic counseling appointment scheduling processes and the inability to track referrals, genetics appointments, and genetic test results within electronic medical record systems. The ES was a valuable process for QI project planning at three OCS and may be used to evaluate genetics services in other settings.     

Enabling a Socio-cognitive Perspective of Mindfulness: The Development and Validation of the Langer Mindfulness Scale

This article outlines the development of a 14-item measure of socio-cognitive mindfulness. Using eight samples (including multisource and multi-wave data) with a total of 4139 responses the authors developed a reliable scale with a tri-dimensional factor structure that replicated across five separate samples. The scale possessed both convergent and discriminant validity, and criterion-related validity was demonstrated through the scale’s relation with development-related categories of psychological well-being, such as life satisfaction and humor, dimensions of physical well-being, e.g., strength, flexibility, and reaction time, as well as aspects of social and organizational well-being including job satisfaction, creativity. Overall, the present study suggests that the Langer Mindfulness Scale (LMS14) is a reliable and valid measure and that the LMS has important implications for individual development within social contexts.     

Modeling Nonstationary Emotion Dynamics in Dyads using a Time-Varying Vector-Autoregressive Model

Emotion dynamics are likely to arise in an interpersonal context. Standard methods to study emotions in interpersonal interaction are limited because stationarity is assumed. This means that the dynamics, for example, time-lagged relations, are invariant across time periods. However, this is generally an unrealistic assumption. Whether caused by an external (e.g., divorce) or an internal (e.g., rumination) event, emotion dynamics are prone to change. The semi-parametric time-varying vector-autoregressive (TV-VAR) model is based on well-studied generalized additive models, implemented in the software R. The TV-VAR can explicitly model changes in temporal dependency without pre-existing knowledge about the nature of change. A simulation study is presented, showing that the TV-VAR model is superior to the standard time-invariant VAR model when the dynamics change over time. The TV-VAR model is applied to empirical data on daily feelings of positive affect (PA) from a single couple. Our analyses indicate reliable changes in the male’s emotion dynamics over time, but not in the female’s—which were not predicted by her own affect or that of her partner. This application illustrates the usefulness of using a TV-VAR model to detect changes in the dynamics in a system.