The Punishment Gap: Racial/Ethnic Comparisons in School Infractions by Objective and Subjective Definitions

This research examines the differences between ethnic groups when school infractions are subjective/objective. Using school discipline incident data, eight categories of infractions are analyzed: disobedience, violence, substance abuse, vandalism, theft, truancy, safety, and miscellaneous. Within these eight categories there are 32 specific infractions. Specific infractions were then classified as either subjective or objective by a committee. Population proportion criteria (PPC; minus or plus 10% of a group’s overall population) is used. Findings indicated that only black students exceeded the criteria with infractions having subjective definitions. All other groups only exceeded PPC with infractions having objective definitions.     

The tight coupling between category and causal learning

The main goal of the present research was to demonstrate the interaction between category and causal induction in causal model learning. We used a two-phase learning procedure in which learners were presented with learning input referring to two interconnected causal relations forming a causal chain (Experiment 1) or a common-cause model (Experiments 2a, b). One of the three events (i.e., the intermediate event of the chain, or the common cause) was presented as a set of uncategorized exemplars. Although participants were not provided with any feedback about category labels, they tended to induce categories in the first phase that maximized the predictability of their causes or effects. In the second causal learning phase, participants had the choice between transferring the newly learned categories from the first phase at the cost of suboptimal predictions, or they could induce a new set of optimally predictive categories for the second causal relation, but at the cost of proliferating different category schemes for the same set of events. It turned out that in all three experiments learners tended to transfer the categories entailed by the first causal relation to the second causal relation.     

A system for automatically analyzing and correcting real-time experiment control programs

A system is described that automatically analyzes the time constraints in a real-time experiment control program and automatically makes corrections to that program to provide any degree of temporal accuracy desired by the experimenter within the capabilities of the hardware. A generalized procedure is presented to allow similar systems to be developed for most common languages and hardware platforms.     

The role of learning data in causal reasoning about observations and interventions

Recent studies have shown that people have the capacity to derive interventional predictions for previously unseen actions from observational knowledge, a finding that challenges associative theories of causal learning and reasoning (e.g., Meder, Hagmayer, & Waldmann, 2008). Although some researchers have claimed that such inferences are based mainly on qualitative reasoning about the structure of a causal system (e.g., Sloman, 2005), we propose that people use both the causal structure and its parameters for their inferences. We here employ an observational trial-by-trial learning paradigm to test this prediction. In Experiment 1, the causal strength of the links within a given causal model was varied, whereas in Experiment 2, base rate information was manipulated while keeping the structure of the model constant. The results show that learners’ causal judgments were strongly affected by the observed learning data despite being presented with identical hypotheses about causal structure. The findings show furthermore that participants correctly distinguished between observations and hypothetical interventions. However, they did not adequately differentiate between hypothetical and counterfactual interventions.     

Tools for remote usability evaluation of Web applications through browser logs and task models

The dissemination of Web applications is extensive and still growing. The great penetration of Web sites raises a number of challenges for usability evaluators. Video-based analysis can be rather expensive and may provide limited results. In this article, we discuss what information can be provided by automatic tools able to process the information contained in browser logs and task models. To this end, we present a tool that can be used to compare log files of user behavior with the task model representing the actual Web site design, in order to identify where users’ interactions deviate from those envisioned by the system design.     

Child Delinquents: Examining the Market for Criminal Futures

This article investigates child delinquency (offenders younger than 13 years of age). The population of child delinquents under various dispositions in the state of Louisiana, at one point in time, is described. Eighty youth are examined using the following characteristics: Race, Gender, Age, Offense Type (violent, nonviolent) Crime Category (felony, status offense, misdemeanor, and felony or misdemeanor) and Disposition (supervision, secure custody, and non-secure custody). Child delinquency is an important topic because the younger the age of first offense the greater the probability of a delinquent and criminal career. Findings reveal very few youth in secure custody and black males account for over half of the population of child delinquents. Over 75% of the population was 12 years of age.     

The Scarlet Letter Study: Five Days of Social Ostracism

Abstract

Over the course of 5 consecutive days, each author agreed to be ostracized for a day at work by the other four coauthors. All coauthors’ offices were in close proximity and were located solely on a single floor and wing of their academic building. Each morning, the name of that day's ostracized individual was drawn, and a scarlet letter “O” was placed above that individual's office door. Ostracizers were instructed to ignore the “Os” by not looking at them, speaking to them, or responding to anything they said. Open-ended individual event-contingent diaries were kept to record participants’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors each time they were reminded of the ostracism. Despite foreknowledge and consent, attributional confusion surfaced and strong aversive reactions were reported. Findings are framed in terms of Williams's (1997) model of ostracism