Jurors Report that Risk Measure Scores Matter in Sexually Violent Predator Trials,but that Other Factors Matter More

After deliberating to a verdict, jurors (N = 462) from 40 sexually violent predator (SVP) trials completed a questionnaire asking them to rate the extent to which risk measure scores, diagnoses, expert witness testimony, and offender characteristics described during the trials influenced their commitment decisions. Jurors reported that offenders' sexual offending history, failure to change, and lack of remorse had the strongest influence on their commitment decisions. They reported that testimony about risk instrument scores (e.g., Static-99) and psychopathy had less influence on their decisions, but those who did report being influenced by instrument results were especially likely to view the offender as being at a high risk for reoffending. Overall, findings suggest that SVP jurors view risk measure results as important, but not as important as other offender, offense, and testimony characteristics, including some that have limited relevance to recidivism risk. Thus, findings also suggest that experts may need to better educate jurors regarding factors that do and do not relate to recidivism risk. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An experimental test of a core REBT hypothesis: evidence that irrational beliefs lead to physiological as well as psychological arousal

While numerous studies support Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and Theory (REBT), they tend to be limited by their use of correlational designs, simulated scenarios and self-report measures. This study tested a core REBT hypothesis in an experimental design using multiple physiological as well as psychological measures. Ninety patients from a medical practice were placed in a real-life stressful situation while holding either a rational, an irrational, or an indifference belief. Those holding a rational belief reported the greatest increase in concern whereas those holding an irrational belief reported the greatest increase in anxiety. Of particular significance, those holding a rational belief showed a decrease in systolic blood pressure whereas those holding an irrational belief showed an increase (diastolic blood pressure increased in both conditions). These results not only support the core REBT hypothesis, but also suggest a way to differentiate between beliefs and emotions by measuring physiological as well as psychological changes.     

Phenotypic and genetic relationships between vocational interests and personality

Relationships between personality and vocational interest factors were examined at the phenotypic and genetic levels. Twins and siblings (N = 516) completed self-report personality and vocational interest scales. Following factor analyses of each scale, five personality and six vocational interest factors were extracted. At the phenotypic level, correlations between personality and vocational interests ranged from zero to .33. Heritability estimates of the scales showed that genetic components accounted for 0–56% of the variance for the vocational interest factors and 44–65% for the personality factors. Genetic correlations between the two areas ranged from zero to .50. The results suggest that personality is related to some vocational interest dimensions and that some of these observed relationships have a common genetic basis.     

Before the measurement of prejudice: Early psychological and sociological papers on prejudice

Given its renown, many psychologists and sociologists likely consider the publication of Gordon Allport's ( 1954 / 1979 ) seminal book The Nature of Prejudice as the inauguration of the psychological study of prejudice. However, we have uncovered rarely‐cited, published papers (starting in 1830) that provide a wealth of speculation on prejudice even before psychologists/sociologists attempted to measure it (circa 1925). Thus, this paper intends to discuss early published work on prejudice in psychology and sociology by focusing on three key questions: a) when did psychologists/sociologists recognize prejudice as a psychological phenomenon, b) when did psychologists/sociologists recognize prejudice as a phenomenon in need of study, and c) what were the historical and personal conditions that gave rise to the interest in prejudice? In short, the seeds of prejudice research were maturing for some time before Allport's seminal book and the first attitudinal studies on prejudice, although these earlier works are seldom cited. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How to Define Extrinsic Properties

There are, broadly, three sorts of account of intrinsicality: ‘self-sufficiency’, ‘essentiality’ and ‘pure qualitativeness’. I argue for the last of these, and urge that we take intrinsic properties of concrete objects to be all and only those shared by actual or possible duplicates, which only differ extrinsically. This approach gains support from Francescotti’s approach: defining ‘intrinsic’ in contradistinction to extrinsic properties which ‘consist in’ relations which rule out intrinsicality. I answer Weatherson’s criticisms of Francescotti, but, to answer criticisms of my own, I amend his account, proposing that possession of an extrinsic property consists in a relation to one or more actual or possible distinct concrete objects. Finally I indicate ways to avoid some apparent objections to this account.     

The psychology of memory,extended cognition,and socially distributed remembering

This paper introduces a new, expanded range of relevant cognitive psychological research on collaborative recall and social memory to the philosophical debate on extended and distributed cognition. We start by examining the case for extended cognition based on the complementarity of inner and outer resources, by which neural, bodily, social, and environmental resources with disparate but complementary properties are integrated into hybrid cognitive systems, transforming or augmenting the nature of remembering or decision-making. Adams and Aizawa, noting this distinctive complementarity argument, say that they agree with it completely: but they describe it as “a non-revolutionary approach” which leaves “the cognitive psychology of memory as the study of processes that take place, essentially without exception, within nervous systems.” In response, we carve out, on distinct conceptual and empirical grounds, a rich middle ground between internalist forms of cognitivism and radical anti-cognitivism. Drawing both on extended cognition literature and on Sterelny’s account of the “scaffolded mind” (this issue), we develop a multidimensional framework for understanding varying relations between agents and external resources, both technological and social. On this basis we argue that, independent of any more “revolutionary” metaphysical claims about the partial constitution of cognitive processes by external resources, a thesis of scaffolded or distributed cognition can substantially influence or transform explanatory practice in cognitive science. Critics also cite various empirical results as evidence against the idea that remembering can extend beyond skull and skin. We respond with a more principled, representative survey of the scientific psychology of memory, focussing in particular on robust recent empirical traditions for the study of collaborative recall and transactive social memory. We describe our own empirical research on socially distributed remembering, aimed at identifying conditions for mnemonic emergence in collaborative groups. Philosophical debates about extended, embedded, and distributed cognition can thus make richer, mutually beneficial contact with independently motivated research programs in the cognitive psychology of memory.