Effects of Defendant Ethnicity on Juries' Dispositions of Felony Cases1

This research examined jury decisions in 317 noncapital felony cases in El Paso, Texas, and assessed the impact of juror ethnicity on jury trial outcomes. Results revealed that there was no relation between defendant ethnicity and the probability of conviction. Anglo American defendants, however, received sentences that were approximately twice as severe as Hispanic defendants. Sentences imposed by juries were significantly related to defendant ethnicity and type of crime for which they were tried. Sentences were also influenced by defendant ethnicity in interaction with jury ethnic composition. Important differences appeared when there was a critical mass of 6 or more Hispanics on juries. This study, using criminal court data, provides a unique opportunity to examine the utility of social psychological theories for understanding actual trial outcomes.     

MANAGERIAL FUNCTIONS: AN ALTERNATIVE TO TRADITIONAL ASSESSMENT CENTER DIMENSIONS?

The construct validity of traditional assessment center dimensions was compared with that of a set of alternative constructs based on the functional structure of managerial work. Subjects were 75 middle-level managers in state government who participated in two developmental assessment centers as part of a centralized management development program. One assessment center measured performance in terms of traditional attribute dimensions and the other in terms of functions performed in managerial work. Results show that evidence for construct validity is weak for both sets of constructs.     

Neuropsychological changes in children with cancer: The treatment of missing data in longitudinal studies

Researchers conducting longitudinal studies with children or adults are inevitably confronted with problems of attrition and missing data. Missing data in longitudinal studies is frequently handled by excluding from analyses those cases for whom data are incomplete. This approach to missing data is not optimal. On the one hand, if data are missing at random, then dropping incomplete cases ignores information collected on those cases that could be used to improve estimates of population parameters (e.g., means, variances, covariances, and growth rates) and improve the power of significance tests of statistical hypotheses. On the other hand, if data are not missing at random, then dropping incomplete cases leads to biased parameter estimates and hypothesis tests that may be internally and externally invalid. This study uses three years of follow-up data from a longitudinal investigation of neuropsychological outcomes of cancer in children to demonstrate the problems presented by missing data in repeated measures designs and some solutions. In evaluating potential biasing effects of attrition, the study extends previous research on neuropsychological outcomes in pediatric cancer by inclusion of patients whose disease had relapsed, and by comparison of surviving and nonsurviving patients. Although the data presented have specific relevance to the study of neuropsychological outcome in pediatric cancer, the problems of missing data and the solutions presented are relevant to a wide variety of diseases and conditions of interest to researchers in child and adult neuropsychology.     

A METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH TO JOB CLASSIFICATION FOR PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL PURPOSES

This paper illustrates a methodological approach to classifying jobs for the purpose of developing performance evaluation instruments. The approach was to administer a worker-oriented job inventory to 2,023 incumbents across several jobs and several levels of responsibility (rank) in the U. S. Coast Guard. The data from the job inventory were then analyzed using Tucker's Three-Mode Factor Analysis. Output from the three-mode factor analysis was used to identify combinations of jobs and ranks for which separate appraisal instruments could be developed. In addition, output from the three-mode factor analysis was used to suggest the content of the various appraisal instruments. Advantages, applications, and limitations of this approach are discussed.     

On the precision of a euclidean structure

This paper is concerned with the development of a measure of the precision of a multidimensional euclidean structure. The measure is a precision index for each point in the structure, assuming that all the other points are precisely located. The measure is defined and two numerical methods are presented for its calculation. A small Monte Carlo study of the measure's behavior is performed and findings discussed.The authors are indebted to Bert F. Green, Jr., Ronald Helms, Andrea Sedlak, and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.     

Children''s self-initiated approach to spiders

Seventeen school children were invited to stay in the presence of a harmless spider for 4 minutes under instructions which were designed mildly to encourage touching the spider but which left open a clear alternative of not touching. Subjects confronted the spider in dyads which differed in composition in terms of fear-level and sex of subjects. The main finding was that boys did not show any more approach when paired with girls, thus confirming previous negative findings in this regard. Other findings were that boys showed more approach than girls, level of fear interacted with sex of subject, and ‘fearless’ but not ‘fearful’ subjects showed more approach with repeated experience.