Training Observers to Detect Deception Effects of Self-Monitoring and Rehearsal

It was predicted that trained observers would detect deception more accurately than untrained observers. More specifically, it was predicted that the highest deception detection accuracy would be found among trained observers judging the veracity of low self-monitors and unrehearsed liars, whereas the lowest detection accuracy would be found among untrained observers judging the veracity of high self-monitors and rehearsed deceivers. It also was hypothesized that the discrepancy between observers‘actual ability to detect deception and their certainty in the accuracy of their judgments would be smaller for trained observers than for untrained observers. Observers trained to detect deception used six behavioral cues based on research by deTurck and Miller (1985): (a) message duration, (b) response latency, (c) adaptors, (d) pauses, (e) nonfluencies, and (f) hand gestures. Results confirmed both hypotheses.     

Religion and the Human Rights Idea

Three recent books focus, in different ways, on the idea of human rights and its relation to religion and religious ethics. All three books discussed here address criticisms of the human rights idea and seek to establish the relationship of religion and human rights with regard to the field of policy. The present discussion begins with an overview that places these three books in the larger context of the development of the human rights idea and its historical relationship with religion. It then turns to Little's book, next to the collection of essays edited by Twiss, Simion, and Petersen, which is described internally as a Festschrift for Little, and then to Hogan's book, and in the final section it explores comparisons among the books.     

Suicide and Homicide Rates in Canada and the United States

Suicide and homicide rates by age were analyzed for Canada and the United States, indicating that suicide is higher in Canada and that homicide is higher in the United States. Results indicated a positive association between homicide and suicide rates in the United States but these two rates of death were not significantly associated in Canada. Holinger (1987) had associated the relative size of the cohort to the rates of suicide and homicide in young people in the United States. The more current data in both countries did not support Holinger's results. Using the measure devised by Easterlin (1980) and Ahlburg and Schapiro (1984) –that is, the proportion of youths aged 15–24 relative to adults aged 25–64–the correlation between the size of the youth cohort and the suicide rate of youths aged 15–24 was negative. It is concluded that the two patterns in these two countries may be explained from a historical perspective.     

Not all forms of misbehavior are created equal: Differential personality facet–counterproductive work behavior relations

We examined whether four personality traits—trait aggression, trait industriousness, trait deceptiveness, and trait self-control—were differentially related to 11 narrow-bandwidth CWB facets: (a) property destruction, (b) inappropriate verbal actions, (c) inappropriate physical actions, (d) poor attendance, (e) poor quality work, (f) unsafe behavior, (g) theft and related behavior, (h) misuse of information, (i) misuse of time and resources, (j) alcohol use, and (k) drug use. Based on responses from 404 employed participants recruited using Mechanical Turk, we found that each narrow-bandwidth personality trait often yielded stronger relationships with overall CWB than with narrow-bandwidth CWB facets.     

Type A behavior, family history of hypertension, and cardiovascular responsivity among black women

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of Type A behavior and family history of hypertension on cardiovascular reactivity to mental stress in a group of employed black women. Measures of heart rate and of systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were taken at rest, during a mental arithmetic task, and during the Type A Structured Interview (SI). Results indicated that the Type A behavior pattern was associated with SBP and DBP hyperresponsivity during the SI but not during mental arithmetic. Additionally, certain speech components of the Type A pattern, as well as features of the potential-for-hostility component, were also related to cardiovascular responses during the SI. Family history of hypertension did not influence the cardiovascular parameters either alone or in combination with Type A behavior. The results suggest that many of the cardiovascular response characteristics of the Type A pattern that have been observed in predominantly white samples also hold true for blacks. Replication of these findings with other subgroups of blacks, such as young females and middle-aged males, will help document the generality of these findings within the black population.     

Contextual conditional discriminations

Three experiments used a discriminated operant procedure to study conditional discrimination learning in rats. The first experiment showed that rats were capable of learning a biconditional discrimination in which two contexts served as conditional cues signalling the reinforcement contingencies associated with two discriminative stimuli. The discrimination was learned equally well when one discriminative stimulus signalled food, the other its absence, and when one stimulus signalled food, the other extinction plus mild footshock.

In Experiment 2 it was shown that prior training on such a conditional discrimination enhanced the subsequent context specificity of simple conditioning relative to control groups of animals for whom the prior training had not been conditional. Experiment 3 showed that a reversal of the significance of one pair of discriminative stimuli produced no spontaneous reversal in performance to a second, target, pair.

The pattern of results is best accounted for by an analysis of contextual conditional discrimination learning in terms of stimulus configurations and offers no support for the notion that rats may learn a general conditional rule or set.