the "death row community": a community psychology perspective

The extant literature on the death row process and its relationship to inmate execution is limited. One way to interpret the association is to examine those groups constituting the death row community. In this study, we argue for the existence of an execution community composed of several related membership groups: the prisoner awaiting death, the inmate's family, the correctional personnel working the unit, and the victim and the victim's loved ones. In order to assess whether, and to what extent, a death row community in fact exists, we rely on several principles found in community psychology. By grafting a "sense of community" model onto the behavior of those membership groups identified, we demonstrate how the death row community phenomenon cohesively operates. We conclude by tentatively exploring the implications of our analysis for purposes of future research on the execution experience and life on death row.     

Economic crisis and social capital: The story of two rural fishing communities

The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the Newfoundland and Labrador groundfish moratorium on the health and social wellness of two communities severely affected by the industry collapse. A qualitative study was conducted involving individual and group interviews with residents from communities in which differences (as indexed primarily by economic and demographic statistics) were observed. Using the concept of social capital and its associated themes of help and support, trust, leadership, and civic engagement, it was observed that the ‘high crisis community’ also demonstrated negative alterations in social and political characteristics which may have compromised its capacity to cope with the crisis and translated into detriments in resident wellness. Among a variety of identified challenges, out‐migration appeared to be the greatest threat as it has translated into an assortment of negative realities. The utility of social capital as a framework for understanding community crises is also discussed.     

The persistence of false beliefs

Do false beliefs last? To explore this question, this study planted false beliefs or memories of a childhood experience with asparagus. We found that these false beliefs had consequences for subjects, when assessed directly after the suggestive manipulation. Moreover, subjects were brought back two weeks later to see if their false beliefs persisted. After two weeks, subjects' confidence in their new memories, and the consequences of those memories were diminished, but not extinguished. These false beliefs were found to be somewhat weaker than other subjects' true beliefs for the same events. Another novel finding was that the manipulation was sufficiently powerful to affect actual food choices.     

Factors that influence search termination decisions in free recall: an examination of response type and confidence

In three experiments search termination decisions were examined as a function of response type (correct vs. incorrect) and confidence. It was found that the time between the last retrieved item and the decision to terminate search (exit latency) was related to the type of response and confidence in the last item retrieved. Participants were willing to search longer when the last retrieved item was a correct item vs. an incorrect item and when the confidence was high in the last retrieved item. It was also found that the number of errors retrieved during the recall period was related to search termination decisions such that the more errors retrieved, the more likely participants were to terminate the search. Finally, it was found that knowledge of overall search set size influenced the time needed to search for items, but did not influence search termination decisions.     

Facilitating morphosyntactic and semantic prediction among second language speakers of German

Using two visual priming experiments, the present study investigates whether presenting facilitative semantic (i.e. colour) and morphosyntactic (i.e. grammatical gender) information in a prime image prior to reading a target sentence facilitates naming of a sentence-final target image among L1 German and L1 English-L2 German speakers. In Experiment 1, L1 and L2 German speakers used both semantic and gender cues to predict the sentence-final target image. In Experiment 2, a new group of L2 German speakers used gender cues to predict, but this effect was stronger when gender information was provided via a gender-marked indefinite article and adjective in the prime, than when the prime contained only the gender-marked article. These results suggest that if L2 speakers are able to overcome unstable and often inaccurate L2 gender assignment, they can use gender cues in a native-like manner for prediction, but that multiple gender-marked cues may be necessary for such prediction to occur.     

Variation in working memory capacity and episodic memory: Examining the importance of encoding specificity

In the present study, we examined the extent to which encoding specificity influences the relation between individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) and episodic recall. Participants performed a paired associates cued recall task in which a rhyme or a semantic judgment was made during encoding. During recall participants were presented with the cue word along with either a rhyme or semantic cue. Across both rhyme and semantic conditions, encoding and retrieval conditions either matched or mismatched. When encoding and retrieval conditions matched, high WMC individuals outperformed low WMC individuals. When encoding and retrieval conditions mismatched, high and low WMC individuals performed equivalently. Importantly, this occurred because high WMC individuals were hurt more than low WMC individuals when conditions mismatched. These results demonstrate the importance of encoding specificity in the relation between WMC and episodic recall as well as of unifying prior work that has demonstrated that high WMC individuals are hurt more in some recall conditions than are low WMC individuals.