Videotaped Confessions: The Impact of Camera Point of View on Judgments of Coercion1

Twenty-four college students viewed one of three videotapes of a mock police interrogation that ended in a confession. In one videotape the camera was focused primarily on the “suspect”; in a second the camera was focused primarily on the “detective”; and in the third the camera was focused on the suspect and detective equally. Subjects in the suspect-focus condition subsequently judged that the confession was elicited by means of a small degree of coercion; subjects in the equal-focus condition judged that it was elicited by means of a moderate degree of coercion; and subjects in the detective-focus condition judged that it was elicited by means of a large degree of coercion. It is argued that the effect of camera point of view on judgments of coercion is mediated by causal attributions. Consistent with this interpretation, camera point of view also had a significant effect on subjects' attributions for the suspect's behavior, with subjects in the suspect-focus condition making the most dispositional attributions and subjects in the detective-focus condition making the least dispositional attributions. Alternative explanations are considered and limitations of the present research are discussed. It is concluded that to the extent that interrogations are videotaped with the camera focused on the suspect, judges and/ or jurors may be biased to perceive a confession as voluntary.     

Efficacy of a brief group psychoeducational intervention for bulimia nervosa

This study compared a brief group treatment that was designed to be purely educational (ED) with a longer course of individual cognitive-behavioural (CB) therapy intended to represent more standard clinical care. Participants were 65 women who sought treatment at Toronto General Hospital, met DSM-III criteria for bulimia nervosa at a normal weight and reported vomiting at least twice weekly. Results indicated that the CB treatment, as expected, was generally more effective than the ED intervention, but on several important outcome indices both treatments appeared to be equally effective for the healthiest 25-45% of the sample. The more intensive individual CB treatment was associated with greater improvement in patients who were more severely symptomatic. However, the ED intervention proved significantly more cost-effective and it was suggested that a sequential treatment program might achieve the superior benefits associated with the longer individual CB treatment at a reduced cost.     

Homogeneity of cognitive and behavioural processes underlying the relationship between insomnia and body image disturbance

Cognitive Processing - Specific cognitive behavioural mechanisms related to selective attention, situational avoidance and physical appearance are implicated in the development and maintenance of...     

Perfectionism and Psychological Distress: A Modeling Approach to Understanding their Therapeutic Relationship

The present study assessed the effectiveness of a web-based psycho-educational intervention protocol for decreasing levels of perfectionism and psychological distress. Different levels of therapeutic intervention (no treatment, general stress management intervention, general stress management intervention plus cognitive behavioral intervention) were provided to perfectionistic participants over a 10-week period. It was found via a longitudinal structural equation model that higher levels of therapeutic intervention predicted greater improvements in perfectionism and psychological distress. Further, amount of improvement in trait perfectionism and perfectionistic automatic thoughts was highly related to amount of improvement in psychological distress. The findings attest to the potential usefulness of a web-based intervention that combines a general stress management intervention with a cognitive behavioral intervention.     

Epistemic logicism & Russell's regressive method

Work on this paper began while I was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Philosophy of Science and continued later at the University of Toronto. During this time, financial support was gratefully received from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.