Inhibiting children's memory of an interactive event: the effectiveness of a cover‐up

Children are generally more susceptible than adults to suggestive interview techniques. Children's memories of an event can be altered and added to by presenting post‐event information (PEI). What is not known is whether embedding silence about a particular scene within the PEI makes that scene less likely to be reported. Children aged 5–6 years made cakes with an agent ‘Mrs Flour’. The following day they received PEI in which a target scene from the original event was omitted, resulting in children reporting the target scene significantly less often than did controls (control= 57% and omit= 23% correct responses). There was direct evidence from the children's language that the omission led to a detriment in memory for the original scene itself. Allowing children to draw during the interview did not reduce the effect. Implications are discussed in terms of child victims and witnesses particularly regarding child sexual abuse. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparison of the MMPI and MMPI-2 Among Job Applicants

The primary objective was to compare the MMPI-2 profiles for professional job applicants with corresponding profiles on the original MMPI. Male and female MMPI-2 profiles were also compared, and correlational and factor analyses were used to examine: A) Interscale correlations vis-à-vis item overlap, and B) The impact of K-corrections. The subjects were 82 auditor applicants, plus 212 sales and management applicants from an earlier study. The original MMPI was found to overpathologize applicant profiles. Male and female MMPI-2 profiles differed only on Mf. Scales L, K, and Hy formed a favorable cluster for job applicants, while F, Hs, Pt, Sc formed one unfavorable cluster—and D, Si a second. K-corrections consistently moved clinical scales in the direction of the favorable cluster.     

Bent passions: Heterosexual masculinity, pornography, and gay male identity

Gay male pornography, as an expression of gay male sexuality, identity and desire requires a set of assumptions and questions different than those used in interrogating heterosexual pornography. Drawing upon Linda Williams’ argument that heterosexual pornography creates utopias of sexual abundance, this paper examines the manner in which gay male pornography likewise creates sexual utopias that both express gay male desire but which also, at the same time, attempt to confront and resolve the conflict between such desire and the overarching dominant heterosexual sex system.     

A genetic two-factor model of the covariation among a subset of Multidimensional Aptitude Battery and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised subtests

The phenotypic and genetic factor structure of performance on five Multidimensional Aptitude Battery (MAB) subtests and one Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised (WAIS-R) subtest was explored in 390 adolescent twin pairs (184 monozygotic [MZ]; 206 dizygotic (DZ)). The temporal stability of these measures was derived from a subsample of 49 twin pairs, with test–retest correlations ranging from .67 to .85. A phenotypic factor model, in which performance and verbal factors were correlated, provided a good fit to the data. Genetic modeling was based on the phenotypic factor structure, but also took into account the additive genetic (A), common environmental (C), and unique environmental (E) parameters derived from a fully saturated ACE model. The best fitting model was characterized by a genetic correlated two-factor structure with specific effects, a general common environmental factor, and overlapping unique environmental effects. Results are compared to multivariate genetic models reported in children and adults, with the most notable difference being the growing importance of common genes influencing diverse abilities in adolescence.     

Sacred texts

It seems indisputable that the way we define and classify texts influences the way we read texts. My concern is to develop methods for reading and understanding texts that are influenced by distinctions between the secular and the sacred, and then draw out some preliminary implications of these methods and distinctions for relationships between church and state in liberal democracies. Distinctions between sacred and secular texts can be tracked with the conjecture that a full textual reading of a sacred text requires a kind of interior commitment. I develop the conjecture, and then argue that this requirement increases the distance between scepticism and religious belief. The upshot of such distinctions and implications is that we cannot read sacred texts as sacred while maintaining the secular consciousness that defines liberal democracies. Acknowledging these textual differences between religion and politics lays to rest, permanently, the popular creed of exceptionalism, the belief that secular patterns of thought, grounded in compromise and toleration, can scan and comprehend religious beliefs from some impartial perspective.     

Inter‐racial contact and the own‐race bias for face recognition in South Africa and England

Own‐race bias, where people are more accurate recognizing faces of people from their own race than other races, can lead to misidentification and, in some cases, innocent people being convicted. This bias was explored in South Africa and England, using Black and White participants. People were shown several photographs of Black and White faces and were later asked if they had seen these faces (and several fillers). In addition, participants were given a questionnaire about inter‐racial contact. Cross‐race identification accuracy for Black participants was positively correlated with self‐reported inter‐racial contact. The confidence–accuracy relationship was strongest when making own‐race judgements. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.